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"The best known and best loved woman in Minnesota' 



ti-ziioi 



MARIA SANFORD 



BY 



HELEN WHITNEY 

Formerly Assistant Professor of Rhetoric 
at the University of Minnesota 



MINNEAPOLIS 

Published by the University of Minnesota 

1922 



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APRS 1923 

DOCUMENTS L>iVio!ON 



DEMOCRAT PRINTING COMPANY 
MADISON, WISCONSIN 



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PREFACE 

No other Minnesota woman has been so 
widely knoAvn and so nniversally loved as Ma- 
ria Sanford. Her life was filled with self sacri- 
ficing labor for others, and with earnest en- 
deavor to forward every good cause. She was 
constantly conminnicating, through her o^vn 
vigorous personality, a zealous enthusiasm for 
education, for character-building, and for civic 
righteousness to all young people with whom 
she came in contact. 

A great throng of those whom she has inspired 
will welcome a biography that will pass on to 
other young people a portion of her glowing 
spirit. 

This story of her life has been written by one 
who Avas closely associated with Miss Sanford in 
the State University. The autobiography which 
was already begun, has been incorporated and 
much material has been furnished by friends and 
relatives. 

The Regents of the University have encour- 
aged the publication by personal assistance and 
have permitted the volume to be issued by the 
University Press. 

iii 



iv MARIA SANFORD 

The Alumni Association has appointed a spe- 
cial committee to further its wide distribution 
and sale. All proceeds are to be used for a Me- 
morial for Miss Sanford. 

The plan for the autobiography as well 
as the biography was conceived and has been 
successfully carried through by Mrs. David F. 
Simpson. Special thanks for accumulating ma- 
terial are due to Mrs.. Simpson, and Mrs. Fred- 
erick Kenaston of Minneapolis, to Mrs. Fred- 
eric Tryon of "Washington, to Miss Helen 
Wilder of Philadelphia, to the Minneapolis Jour- 
nal for permission to reprint the copyrighted 
autobiography and to Mr. G. A. Hubner for per- 
mission to use the copyrighted frontispiece. 

Assistance in revision and correction of manu- 
script has been rendered by Miss Elizabeth 
Lynskey and Mrs. Simpson. To all of these as 
well as to the author it has been a labor of love. 

Alumni Committee. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

I. The Unfinished Autobiography . 1 

II. A Connecticut Yankee . . .44 

III. The Teacher 68 

IV. The Minnesota Pioneer . . 110 
y. Christian's P>urden . . . 132 

VI. The Neighbor . . . .156 

VII. The End of the Teacher's Eoad . 184 

VIII. *' General Helping" . . .218 

IX. Harvest . . . . . . 260 

X. The Farewell . . . .301 



MARIA SANFORD 



CHAPTER I 
THE UNFINISHED AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

I come of good, strong New England stock. 
My ancestors were among the first settlers of 
the town where I was born, Saybrook, Connecti- 
cut, called later, since the town was divided, 
Old Saybrook. Saybrook was named for Lord 
Seal and Lord Brooke of the London Company, 
who were sending over settlers to the New 
World. Lord Fenwick came with the first set- 
tlers to Saybrook, bringing his young bride, 
who, after about a year, succumbed to the hard- 
ships of the new country. Her Elizabethan 
tomb, which her stricken husband brought over 
and set up over her grave beside the fort, was 
one of the most marked antiquities of old Con- 
necticut, but it had to give way to the necessi- 
ties of commerce. When the Valley road was 
built it needed a terminal outside the bar at the 



2 MARIA SANFORD 

mouth of the Connecticut River, and Lady 
Fenwick 's tomb and her remains were removed 
to the cemetery. My cousin, a physician, super- 
intended the removal, and he found her skele- 
ton entire except the flange of one toe. And the 
inner coil of her chestnut hair was still lustrous 
after about two hundred years in the grave. 
As Saybrook was situated at the mouth of the 
Connecticut River, the settlers thought it would 
be a city, and laid out the main street sixteen 
rods wide and two miles long, with a double 
row of elms shading the walk on each side of 
the roadway; a magnificent street still. So 
bravely our Puritan ancestors built for the 
future. 

Yale College was first located at Saybrook, 
under the name of the Connecticut Colleague 
School. But in 1716 it had been found that the 
bar at the mouth of the river would hinder 
commerce; and New Haven, with its unob- 
structed harbor, was outgrowing Saybrook, and 
the college was removed to that city and named 
Yale College for a benevolent donor, Elihu Yale. 

My father 's mother was Elizabeth Chapman. 
Her great grandfather, George Chapman, 
erected, about 1650, the first frame house in 
Saybrook. This structure, about twenty feet 
square, was so well built that it formed still the 



MARIA SANFORD 3 

snmmer kitchen of the house in which I lived 
from my sixth to my eleventh year. George 
Chapman bonght his wife, Annie Bliss, from 
off ship when the London Company **sent over 
chaste young women to be wives of the plant- 
ers '', who paid the passage of the girls and 
married them. This Annie Bliss became the 
mother of a notable race. Those whom I re- 
member were tall, straight, fine looking, intel- 
ligent men with more of individuality and 
initiative than are given to most people. I was 
told, as a child, that my ancestors in two lands, 
the Chapmans on my father's side and the 
Clarks on my mother's for three generations 
went up to the general court (legislature) to- 
gether when the people sent their best men. 

My mother 's father, Ruf us Clark, enlisted in 
the Revolutionary army at seventeen years of 
age, and this gives me my membership in the 
D. A. R. He became a man much trusted and 
esteemed, was made deacon of the church and 
justice of the peace, and, I might say,, general 
counsellor. He Avas a great reader and had 
quite a library of his own, in those days when 
the Bible and the almanac were considered suf- 
ficient for everybody but the minister and the 
doctor; and he read all the books he could 
borrow. 



4 MAEIA SANFORD 

I had leaves of an old account book of my 
grandfather's, and this is the way they read: 
One gallon of rum, one gallon of molasses, one 
pound of ginger, one gallon of rum, five pounds 
of sugar, one pound of saleratus, one gallon of 
rum. About every third item a gallon of rum, 
and this a deacon and a justice! Everybody 
drank in those days, and treated the help in the 
field and the minister when he came to call. My 
grandfather read of the temperance movement 
in England before it was started in this country ; 
and convinced of its importance, banished 
liquor from his household and took coffee in- 
stead to his laborers in the field. When some 
years after, the temperance movement was 
started in Connecticut, the workers, who were 
told of his practice, came to get my grandfather 
to sign the pledge. He told them he was heartily 
in sympathy with temperance and practiced 
it, but did not like to sign a pledge. They were 
disappointed, of course. The next day he was 
down street, and the temperance workers were 
laboring mth a man who was ruining himself 
and his family by drink. 

**I think jest ez Deacon Clark does", he 
said, **I ken leave off, but I don't want to 
sign.'' 

* 'Where's your paper?" asked my grand- 



MARIA SANFORD 5 

father, and gave them his name. He didn't 
want such hangers-on to his skirts. 

My mother's mother, Lydia Bushnell Clark, 
was a very handsome woman, with beantifnl 
soft brown hair, sparkling bright eyes, clear 
complexion and full red lips. Her husband, 
my grandfather, was almost as homely as his 
wife was handsome. My mother told me that 
when she was a girl of sixteen, the youngest of 
five children, an old suitor of my grandmother, 
who had been twenty-five years out West (east- 
ern Ohio) came to visit his old friends. She 
said that she was aware, as she was sitting by 
the fireplace, that he was looking at her very 
earnestly. Finally he said: ^^You don't look 
much like your mother." She said she knew 
how to take the compliment. If she didn't 
** handsome much" somebody had bequeathed 
her a wonderful voice and a sweetness of dis- 
position far richer than mere beauty. She sang 
soprano, and her voice Avas full, rich and clear. 
She would take the high tenor and carry it with 
perfect ease and accuracy. But it was not so 
much the range of her voice as its quality, what 
the elocutionists call its ^Uimbre", that was 
remarkable. It just took hold of your heart- 
strings. 

My uncle, her brother, William Clark, was 



6 MARIA SANFORD 

six years her elder. He was a school teacher, 
and I used to tell my little companions with 
pride that I had an nncle who had taught school 
forty years. I little thought that I myself 
should teach fifty-four years. In those early 
days teachers had to be severe to be successful, 
and my uncle was a very successful teacher. 
My mother went to school to him, and he was 
so much afraid of being considered partial to 
her that he was so strict (nobody could be 
severe with her), that she called him ^^Mr. 
Clark '^ at home. He told me, after mother's 
death, that when they used to go out into com- 
pany together he was very proud of her, for 
everybody loved her so. But she always obeyed 
him as if he had been her father. Once they 
were invited to a party given to the congress- 
man of that district, who lived in an adjoining 
town. There was a popular song at that time 
which my mother did not like; she thought it 
silly. She was urged to sing it at the party, 
but declined. When she Avas still urged. Uncle 
William said, *SSing it, Mary'', and she did. 
When she was through, the congressman said, 
much to her delight, *^I have heard better songs, 
but never a sweeter singer." 

My father, Henry E. Sanford, was like the 
Chapmans, tall and straight, six feet in his 



MARIA SANFOED 7 

stockings. His characteristics were strength, 
courage, energy and skill, and a good cheer 
which no misfortune could crush. He had won- 
derfully intelligent hands. He never wasted a 
minute. He learned the shoemaker 's trade and 
worked at it, giving his wages to his father, as 
was customary, until he was twenty-one. Then 
he worked for himself, and by the time he was 
twenty-five he had laid up enough to warrant 
his marrying. And he won a prize. The mar- 
riage was an ideal one. My mother and father 
were so proud of each other, so ambitious, and 
looked to the future with such confidence and 
hope ! I love to imagine those early prosperous 
years, when my father bought and paid for the 
comfort of a little house, which my mother's 
neatness and good taste, and their mutual affec- 
tion, made a beautiful home. 

But their love was not dependent on good for- 
tune. In the darken years that followed, when 
loss and hardship came, there was never a flaw 
in their trust and devotion. Until the final 
parting, my mother always looked to my father 
for courage and wise direction, and he to her 
for inspiration and that graciousness wliich 
a strong man gains from a loving woman of 
refinement and delicacy. There was never any 
bickering between them. I remember all too 



8 MARIA SANFOED 

well their very humble surroundings, their 
hard toil, their careful economy, but I do not 
remember — and I certainly should had it oc- 
curred, for I remember that when my father 
put up a stove-pipe we children kept out of his 
way — I do not remember a single sharp or un- 
kind word, but always the gentle tone and the 
glance of love and sympathy. 

I recall that when I was a very little girl 
father came home one night from his work. I 
do not know why this incident should be 
stamped on my memory except 

''Set by some mordant of fancy 
It insists on its right to be there.'' 

My father leaned over my mother's shoulders 
and said tenderly, **Been ironing today, 
MaryT' (ironing was always hard for her) 
and kissed her. And the radiant smile that 
lighted up her face obliterated all signs of care 
and weariness. 

My father never felt it a hardship to go out 
of his way to do the little delicate things that 
pleased mother. His hours of labor were long 
and hard, but he never sat down to the table in 
his shirtsleeves, and when he was running a 
farm, I think he would have gone without a 
meal any time rather than sit doAvn to the table 



MARIA SANFORD 9 

without changing to his slippers, because he 
knew mother noticed and disliked the odors of 
the barnyard and stable. 

They each loved to do what the other liked; 
and the same spirit extended to us children 
and to neighbors and friends. My father and 
mother were both deeply reli,gious but never 
bigoted. Father was superintendent of the 
Sunday school and leader of the choir and al- 
ways the minister's right hand man. 

My parents were poor, but there Avas no sor- 
didness in their poverty. I never heard my 
father plead poverty when the contribution box 
was going round. There was a bright, genial 
hospitality in their home. My mother was an 
excellent cook and could make the plainest and 
simplest food attractive, and kinsfolk and 
strangers loved to visit them; and distin- 
guished guests, usually lovers of music, who 
sometimes came, not only said but showed that 
they wanted to come again. 

Is it strange that having come from such a 
home, I believe with almost the enthusiasm of a 
zealot in the happiness and beauty of the 
homes of the poor? Those so-called homes 
where squalor and vice and disease and degra- 
dation thrive, mil, I believe, be abolished by 
social progress; but in the homes of self-re- 



10 MARIA SANFORD 

specting, hard working poverty, there may and 
should be as much refinement and courtesy and 
tender love as in a palace. I believe we should 
bring up our boys and girls to expect to make 
such homes, and to prepare for them by tender 
care of their mothers and sisters at home, and 
to save the time and money they spend at the 
movies in preparing themselves to enjoy and 
make others enjoy music and books and pic- 
tures that give delight to the home. And I 
want our young couples to feel that a single 
room, with a bed in the wall, and a kitchen in 
a closet, and a bathtub under the table, a place 
from which they are obliged to go out every 
night for entertainment, is not the nucleus of 
a true home; that the plainest house in the 
suburbs, where there can be trees and flowers 
and children, where there will be burdens and 
duties and simple hospitality, is far better for 
the present and infinitely superior for the fu- 
ture happy home. But I am getting ahead of 
and away from my story. 

Some time in the first seven years of his 
married life, my father went to Georgia and 
set up a shoe store, and he was successful. 
But the years of 1836 and 1837 were not only 
years of financial panic, but also of anti-slav- 
ery agitation and of great prejudice in the 



MARIA SANFORD 11 

South against Northern people. Somebody 
sent my father anti-slavery newspapers. He 
never saw them. They were taken out of his 
office and distributed among his customers. 
All at once his business fell flat. He could sell 
nothing, he could collect nothing, for even in 
the best days Southerners, at that time, paid 
their bills only once a year. He came home 
to do the best he could by his business cred- 
itors. He sold the place he and my mother 
loved so well, moved his family into part of 
his father's house, and when he had thus 
raised all that he could, there still remained a 
debt of a thousand dollars, for which he gave 
his note; and of which, I rejoice to say, he 
paid every cent. It was a heavy burden for 
a man mth only his hands and courage, and 
with a delicate wife and little children to care 
for, but he bore it with unwavering cheerful- 
ness. He might have taken advantage of the 
bankrupt law, but he said proudly : * * No man 
shall ever look me in the face and say I 
wronged him out of a penny." My mother 
was in perfect accord with this course, but it 
was very hard on her. My grandfather's 
house was not fitted for two families. My 
father's mother had died years before; and 
the stepmother who took her place, though 



12 MARIA SANFORD 

kindly at heart, was a little sharp with her 
tongue, and mother was always sensitive lest 
she should infringe on others' rights and 
privileges. And with little children it was 
not always easy to be sure. It was just three 
months before my birth that, when the last 
things were placed on the load, my mother 
bade farewell to the home of so much happi- 
ness, and with her two little girls walked up 
to my grandfather's house. A prominent 
man of the town met her on the way. He said 
to his wife when he ,got home, ^*I hope I may 
never see another woman look as Mary Clark 
looked today," calling her by her maiden 
name, which they all knew and loved. 

In my young womanhood I was subject to 
deep depression, and my mother said to me: 
**It is no wonder to me, when I recall how I 
suffered in the months before you were born." 
Fortunately for me my father's spirit 
triumphed in me. I outlived the days of dark- 
ness and have been able, until bowed by the 
weight of years, like my father to square my 
shoulders to heavy burdens, and not only 
stand erect but keep a cheerful spirit. But I 
was doomed in the beginning to add to my 
parents' trouble. I was born under a cold 
star; in Connecticut, in December, the eigh- 



MARIA SANFORD 13 

teenth or nineteenth. It was near midnight, 
and nobody ever knew whether before or after. 
I have chosen to celebrate the latter day. The 
old fashioned houses were built with great 
beams resting for support on the chimney. It 
was so cold that in the effort to keep my 
mother's room warm by a fire in the fireplace 
they set the house on fire, and when I was a 
week old, mother and child had to be removed. 
But this was not the worst. When I was 
six weeks old my mother was taken with fever, 
and I had to be weaned. I would have no 
substitute for the mother's breast and opened 
my mouth and screamed. By all reports, my 
voice was strong even then. There were no 
trained nurses in those days, and even if there 
had been my parents could not have afforded 
one, and I wore out the strength and patience 
of aunts and cousins who waited from day to 
day to see me starve to death. At last an old 
woman back in the woods consented to take 
the baby who wouldn't eat and would cry all 
the time. When they were trying to feed me 
with a spoon I snatched the cup and drank — 
a rather novel proceeding for a baby less than 
two months old — ^but I have always liked to 
have a way of my own. After a week or two, 
my grandfather, in going to the woods, went 



14 MARIA SANFORD 

out of his way to see the baby and came home 
sayin,g, ^^I do believe that child is determined 
to live." I nsed to tell my father and mother 
laughingly that they could have spared me 
then, for their hands were full. * I surely 
ought to do some good in the world after such 
a disastrous beginning. 

As soon as my father could settle up his 
business affairs, he went to Meriden, Con- 
necticut, to work for his brother, who had an 
auger factory there. My father took charge 
of a room. The men worked ten hours, and 
father had to open up and get things ready 
before the men came, and straighten out and 
close up after they had gone; so that he had 
nearly eleven hours. And he received a dol- 
lar and a half a day. I was six months old 
when father moved his family to Meriden, a dis- 
tance of about forty miles. He hired a little 
house. It was dirty and dilapidated, but 
there was a beautiful big willow tree in front 
of it. Father fixed up the house, and mother 
made it neat, and they were very happy in it. 
There my first memories began. 

I remember how the doctor took my head 
between his knees and pulled out a back tooth 
with turnkeys. The idea of putting that sav- 
age instrument into the mouth of a little child! 



MARIA SANFORD 15 

And they had no way of dulling the pain ex- 
cept with sugar plums that the teacher who 
came in gave me if I would stop crying. My 
father had gone to choir rehearsal when the 
pain in my tooth became unendurable ; and my 
sister, ten years old, walked in the dark the 
long two miles and a half after the doctor. I 
am very sure she was neither reluctant nor 
afraid. Perhaps the experiences of those 
days gave children stronger nerves. 

What wonderful changes have taken place in 
the compass of my memory! I remember our 
first stove. It was called the ^^ Franklin'' stove 
after Benjamin Franklin, who invented it. It 
was really a castiron fireplace, set out in the 
room and connected to the chimney by a stove - 
pipe; but it had the great advantage that we 
could get all around it. I remember our first 
cookstove. It was a curious affair; just a 
firebox with a hearth and covers and the flue 
that was supported by the back leg, and an oven 
in the stovepipe. But, crude as it was, it was 
a great improvement; for before that time the 
cooking had been done in the fireplace by means 
of a crane and pothooks supporting the kettles 
over the fire. It was back-breaking work, and 
it is not strange that so many men buried two 
wives and sometimes more. The baking was 



16 MARIA SANFORD 

done in the big brick oven, and for this it was 
necessary to have dry wood. Green wood would 
sizzle and at last burn on the hearth, but for the 
oven the wood must be dry ; and it was counted 
one of the evidences of a man 's provident kind- 
ness that he kept on hand a good supply of dry 
wood for the oven. As we used to sing in our 
childish plays, 

*'You must prove constant and prove good, 
And keep your old woman in oven wood." 

By the way, this form of expression, **my man'' 
and ^^my woman" and often ^'my old woman" 
was common in those days when husband and 
wife spoke of each other. It was remarked by 
the neighbors that my mother always said ' ' Mr. 
Sanford" when she spoke of father, and we 
were a little proud, as children, that we never 
said or heard at home, in speaking of the neigh- 
bors, ' ' do^\ai to Spencer 's " or ^ ' Ingham 's ' ', but 
always down to ' ' Mr. Spencer 's " or '' Mr. Ing- 
ham 's", and even ^^doAvn to Mr. Sheffield's 
store." We never, as children, called our 
cousins who were young men and women simply 
Azuba, Rufus, and Lydia Ann, but always 
Cousin Azuba, Cousin Rufus, and Cousin Lydia 
Ann. 

I dwelt upon this because some children to- 



MAKIA SANFORD 17 

day seem to think it smart to be careless of the 
handles of their words. "When they come to be 
men and women they will be very glad if they 
have early learned deference for their elders, 
both in speech and thought. The time spent in 
learning habits of courtesy yields big interest, 
not only in the esteem of others, but in the de- 
light in one's own soul. 

Going back to the stoves — ^When I was young 
there was no fire in the churches. Women car- 
ried little foot stoves : a copper box about ei^ght 
or ten inches square, cased in wood, in which 
they carried a pan of hot coals; and at noon 
they went to the near neighbors' and replen- 
ished it. The children wriggled and kept them- 
selves warm, and the men — they were accus- 
tomed to cold. Wlien some of the neighboring 
parishes had installed stoves the matter was 
brought up in the church in Saybrook. A few 
of the older people were **dead sot" against 
it; but the young people prevailed, and the 
stoves were put in. It was in December; but 
the first Sunday after the stoves had been in- 
stalled was warm and pleasant, and so they 
built no fire, a fact that was not known by the 
congregation generally. In the middle of the 
sermon one of the bitter opponents of the stove 
got up and walked out. He Avas followed by a 

2- 



18 MARIA SANFOED 

second and then by a third. ^^Conldn't stand 
the heat of them stoves", they said. *'Knew I 
couldn't stand the heat of them stoves.'' The 
ridicule when they came to find out that no fire 
had been built silenced opposition forever. 

Our houses were lighted, when I was young, 
with tallow dips and sometimes by whaleoil 
lamps ; and how they did smell ! Finally there 
came the brilliant light of kerosene oil. It was 
a great improvement, so far as eyesight was 
concerned; but the cleaning of the lamps, in a 
careful household, was a tedious and unpleas- 
ant task. Where the housewife was careless the 
oil would run down from lamps and be trans- 
ferred from her fingers to her food. I remem- 
ber teachers bewailed their experiences in such 
households. One friend of mine said of one 
such family, ^'They eat kerosene oil all the 
time. They don't know it isn't good." If the 
woman of that day could have seen one turn a 
button and flood the room with electric light, 
perfectly clean, she would have thought the mil- 
lenium was surely coming. 

The hardest of all the tasks of the household 
was soapmaking. The big barrel had to be got 
in, and the grease and the potash and the lye 
from a barrel of wood ashes all supplied. It 
required skill, and it was hard work, especially 



MARIA SANFORD 19 

when the soap didn't come, and they had to stir 
it hour after hour with a big stick. It was con- 
sidered the woman's privilege to be cross on 
the day she made soap. I remember one of our 
neighbors saying that when his wife made soap 
he always threw his hat in when he came home, 
and if that came out spitefully, he concluded 
it was judicious to hang around awhile before 
he went in himself. But my father always con- 
trived to find time to make soap for my mother. 
The means of transportation of those days 
was very crude. Very few people had carriages 
or carryalls; but most rode in open wagons, 
sometimes with and often without springs. The 
stage coach, as everybody knows, was the means 
of public travel. My father used to insist, after 
the railways came into fashion and were consid- 
ered by most so dangerous, that they were far 
safer, in proportion to travel, than the old stage 
coach. He said that when he was coming home 
from Georgia they would often start on a dan- 
gerous road with a driver who came out of the 
tavern ^^half seas over." The man would whip 
his horses into a gallop at the top of a moun- 
tain, and the stage would sway over to the edge 
of a precipice; only a kind Providence and the 
sure-footed horses keeping them from a sudden 
death. 



20 MARIA SANFOED 

I remember the building of what I think was 
the first railway in the United States. It was 
the switch back at Mauch Chunk, in Pennsyl- 
vania, for taking coal out of the mines by grav- 
ity. But I believe the first road for passengers 
was between Hartford and New Haven. I re- 
member the hordes of Irish that built it; I 
remember their little dump carts and their dirty 
children. I remember how, in the middle of the 
night, the men and women used to come howl- 
ing home from a wake, drunk and quarreling. 
But the grandchildren of these same Irish are 
the prominent and honored citizens of Meriden 
today. So let our present foreigners keep good 
heart. The Scandinavians are already coming 
into their own; but the Italians and the Poles 
and the Russians, if they wdll but stand stanchly 
by our American institutions and keep their 
children in school, may hope to see their grand- 
children the wealthy and responsible citizens of 
Minneapolis in the decades to come. 

My home was about three miles from the 
church, and in those days everybody except 
very little children went to church. My father 
hired a sitting for my mother in a neighbor's 
wagon ; but of my earliest recollection, when I 
was about three years old I walked with my 
father. My mother was too scrupulous about 



MARIA SANFORD 21 

infringing upon others ' rights, when one sitting 
was hired, to have taken her little girl upon 
her lap. And so I walked; and when I was 
tired my father took me in his arms. I count 
this experience one of the valuable ones of my 
life : the close association of my father and the 
early formed habit of enjoying a long walk. 
This habit certainly contributed much not only 
to my happiness but to my health and vigor. 
All along the years, whenever I didn't have 
household duties, I would take freely a wall^ of 
five miles before breakfast, and enjoy it. 

In regard to the church, there were some 
curious customs in those days. One was that 
a mother or some elder woman sat at the end 
of the pew, and the girls next to her, and after 
them the boys next to their father. I remem- 
ber a wealthy man, a deacon of the church, 
who had a large family of children. His wife 
was usually at home with the baby, and he 
would come with eight or nine little fellows. 
The boys and girls would come crowding into 
the church, and at the door of the pew he 
would sort them out, pushing in this girl and 
pulling out that boy until he had them all ar- 
ranged with due decorum. The only excep- 
tion to this rule was that the youngest, even if 
it was a girl, could sit next to its father so 



22 MAEIA SANFORD 

that it could lay its head on his lap and go to 
sleep. 

Another custom was that the choir was 
seated in a gallery over the door, opposite to 
the minister and behind the congregation; 
and when they sang the people stood up and 
turned their backs upon the minister and faced 
the choir. This position of the choir explains 
what some of our young people fail to under- 
stand in Lowell's description of the girl who 
was in love: 

She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing 

Ez hisn in the choir; 
My! When he made Ole Hunderd ring, 

She knowed the Lord was nigher. 

An' she'd blush scarlit right in prayer, 
When her new meetin '-bunnit 

Felt somehow thru' its crown a pair 
0' blue eyes sot upun it. 

^^Blue Eyes" were in the choir loft heJiind the 
congregation. 

And in those days the colored people occu- 
pied the seats in the rear of the church. I 
think I must have been about three years old 
when I first discovered them; and I know my 
mother had considerable trouble that day in 
keeping my face to the front. I continually 



MAEIA SANFORD 23 

turned to stare at these black faces ; and finally 
I whispered to mother, ^ ' Why don 't they wash 
themselves before they come to church f 
And I seemed to cling to this idea as to the 
cause of their being black. When I was six 
years old, one cold night my mother took me 
mth her to carry some things to a poor colored 
family that lived in a windmill. There was a 
pair of twins about a year old and now a new 
baby of two or three days. They told me that 
they would give me the little one. When we 
came to leave I insisted on taking it. I was 
usually an obedient child, but I remember 
that I cried heartily because mother wouldn't 
allow me to take the baby. As we were going 
home mother asked me why I was so naughty ; 
and I said plaintively, '^But, mother, why 
didn't you take the baby, and then it wouldn't 
be black 1" She asked me what I thought made 
it black; and I said, **Why, they handle it mth 
their dirty hands." It was not so much that 
I wanted the baby, but I wanted to save it 
from future misfortune. 

Religious prejudices in those days were 
very stron,g, and the different Protestant de- 
nominations kept themselves a good deal 
apart. At my earliest recollection almost all 
the people in our vicinity were Congregation- 



24 MARIA SANFORD 

alists. There were a very few Episcopalians. 
My father and mother Avere counted very lib- 
eral, and united cordially with other denom- 
inations. With the Irish came in the Catho- 
lics and after them the Methodists and Bap- 
tists. 

I think it must have been about 1844 that a 
Universalist preacher first came to our town 
for a single service. Among the very few 
that went to hear him was a rich, retired sea 
captain, a wicked old sinner. As he was go- 
ing home he was overheard saying to himself 
solemnly: *^ Blessed doctrine! Blessed doc- 
trine! If I could only believe it.'' I remem- 
ber when I was about seven years old I 
chanced to pass the Episcopal church, lighted 
up for Christmas Eve services, and I looked 
upon it with a feeling of horror, much as a 
child of today would look upon a gambling 
hell if the door had been opened. I had not 
been taught this. It was the reflection of a 
common prejudice. The fires of religious 
war and persecution had burned out, but the 
embers still smoldered. How grateful we 
should be for the unity with which we can join 
hands in any good work with all who, under 
whatever name, are serving the Master ! 

I was four years old when I began to go to 



MARIA SANFORD 25 

school. There was a low bench around the 
stove for the little children and a high bench 
with a slanting board behind it for the older 
ones. This counter was cut up in various 
hieroglyphics, initials and pictures of many 
kinds. I remember that two girls, in an idle 
hour, dug a grave in the counter and buried a 
fly with the customary funeral services. 
There was no singing in the school. There 
was no mental arithmetic, no literature, and 
no history. And if w^e chanced to draw a pic- 
ture on our slates we were severely reproved. 
We read round in turn from the New Testa- 
ment; and the few fanatics who now advocate 
the reading of the Bible in school would be 
cured of the notion if they could but hear one 
day's blunders as I remember them. A friend 
of mine bears testimony to this experience. 
The children were reading the seventeenth 
chapter of Matthew, the story of the Trans- 
figuration; and one boy instead of reading, 
*^And when the disciples heard it they fell on 
their faces and were sore afraid, read, **and 
were sore afterward." 

I have two vivid recollections of this school 
term when I was four years old. One is that the 
teacher, anxious to make us acquainted with 
useful facts, crowded into our heads long lists 



26 MARIA SANFORD 

of names of the Indian tribes of the United 
States, which I can reel off today, mispronun- 
ciation and all, just as I learned them. Use- 
less lumber to give a child to keep in the brain 
for fourscore years! 

The other vivid recollection of my first term 
at school was a thunderstorm. It was at the 
end of two weeks of August rain; and on that 
particular morning 'Hhey didn't sift it at all, 
just poured it down by the bucketful.'' For 
an hour the thunder and lightning had been 
very severe, and the teacher had allowed us to 
keep our aprons over our faces; but just as 
she said, ^'I think it's over now, and you can 
put down your aprons," there came a crash- 
ing bolt, and the whole schoolhouse seemed to 
go up in flame. The lightning had really 
struck a haycock about ten feet from the 
schoolhouse. Why it didn't strike the build- 
ing I have never known. There was more 
than one child who insisted the next morning: 
*^The schoolhouse has burned down. I saw 
it afire." We rushed out, teacher and all. 
The street was flooded with water. There was 
a shallow ditch, and I waded to my waist in 
crossing it. We took refuge in the house of 
the nearest nei,ghbor. 

One boy, who lived on the hill behind the 



MARIA SANFORD 27 

schoolhonse, started to go home. His father 
was a drunkard, and my mother had been to 
their house many a time on errands of mercy, 
so that the boy knew her. When he was part 
way home he was too terrified to proceed, but 
turned around and came down to our back 
door. The rain had now stopped, but he was 
wet to the skin. When he said to my mother, 
**The schoolhouse is struck, and it struck me 
once,'' of course my mother was alarmed. It 
was ahnost noon; and father came in soon to 
his dinner and went up at once to see what had 
become of his little girls. I think he was very 
much relieved to find us safe in the house of 
the neighbor, for I remember that his right 
arm pressed me close to his breast as he car- 
ried me home. My next sister was holding 
his left hand, and the oldest clinging to his 
coat on the right. To me one of the most 
beautiful sights is a father caring tenderly for 
his little daughters; I think perhaps because 
the scene is tangled up in my mind with such 
precious memories. 

The influence of that storm with me was last- 
ing. None of my family was afraid of thunder 
and lightning. Even in the next generation, my 
sister's children were entirely free from this 
fear. I remember when my little niece and 



28 MARIA SANFORD 

nephew of five and three years of age were 
alone upstairs in a severe storm, I went up 
thinking they must be afraid. Jnst before I 
reached them there was a terrific bolt, and the 
little girl clapped her hands and said : ' ' That 's 
a good one! Give ns another." But no such 
courage for me. All through my childhood the 
very appearance of thunderheads would make 
me quake and even cause actual nausea. It was 
not imtil I was a teacher and responsible for 
the impression made on children that I was 
able to conquer this unreasoning fear, and I 
admit that even now I don't enjoy a thunder- 
storm at night ; so powerful are the impressions 
of childhood. In this case, of course, it was 
accidental ; but many parents are careless of the 
influence of fear upon their children. Someone 
told a little cousin of mine a blood curdling 
ghost story; and he went to school next day 
and picked out with a pin every place in his 
Testament where Holy Ghost occurred. He 
would have no ghosts in his book. 

Going back to the schools of my childhood. 
In summer we had Avomen teachers and in win- 
ter men, because it was thought that women 
couldn 't control the big boys ; and in the brutal 
system of school government then prevailing, 
physical strength was an important matter. 



MARIA SANFORD 29 

There were often twelve or fifteen boys of 
man's stature; and in some schools it was a 
favorite amusement to turn out the teacher. 

I remember, when I was about twelve years 
of age, in a neighboring town five men in suc- 
cession had been turned out ; and the committee 
was in despair, when one man suggested that 
he knew a woman who could manage that 
school. The committee in despair concluded to 
take her. The boys thought it was a lark and 
had things all planned out. When they went 
out at recess they were going to assemble on a 
rock at the rear of the schoolhouse, and when 
she knocked on the window for them to come in 
(there were no bells in those days) they would 
stand up and glare at her, then go in and put 
her out. One boy by the name of Jim was to 
give them the signal. The teacher came and 
knocked; but Jim, instead of standing up, 
meekly slid down over the rock and went in, 
and the others followed him and carried out 
the work of the morning in an orderly manner. 
At noon the boys said to him: *^Jim, what 
made you go in f He answered : * ^ Golly ! Did 
you see her eyes f In man or woman it is the 
consciousness of mastery which gives success. 

The prejudice that believed women could not 
control older boys has passed away; but we 



30 MARIA SANFORD 

still retain the prejudice that a man teacher is 
necessary for the dignity of a school. I admit 
that the influence of both men and women is 
desirable in the formation of the character of 
the young. But when people put inexperienced, 
callow youths in positions of importance in 
schools or colleges simply because they are 
** lords of creation", and pay them twice as 
much as is given to the really valuable women 
whose power alone keeps the man in his place 
and the school running, then there is a call for 
reform. And we do not have to go to the coast 
of either ocean to find instances of this kind. 
There are some men in the teaching profession 
Avhose work is of inestimable value ; but we all 
know that this profession does not appeal to 
many men of power. The thing we need to 
guard against is that we do not in these days 
let the really priceless women who are in the 
profession leave it for want of proper pay. 

By far the most valuable educational influ- 
ence of my childhood came from my mother. I 
remember when I was not yet four years old 
following her about in her work, begging her 
to tell me more about the war. Her uncle had 
been a colonel in the Revolutionary War and 
had died on the prison ship. Behind my grand- 
father 's house was a beacon hill on which a tar 



MARIA SANFORD 31 

barrel was kept to be set on fire when the enemy 
landed; a signal, to another beacon hill in the 
distance, of approaching danger, the telegraph 
system of those days. 

Long before I was ten years of age I had in 
mind a gallery of worthies, embracing not only 
our Revolutionary heroes and men like Hamil- 
ton and Marshall and Henry Clay, but old world 
worthies: Oliver Cromwell, John Hampden, 
Alfred the Great, Gustavus Adolphus, and 
Charlemagne. I knew and delighted in the 
character and deeds of these men. My mother 
realized the value of the word * ' service ' ' in its 
modern application ; and she taught us the value 
of time, and sought to inspire us to worthy lives 
by keeping before us the achievements of such 
women as Hannah More, Elizabeth Fry and 
Mary Somerville, and in this country of Mary 
Lyon, and later of Susan B. Anthony and Abby 
Foster and Lucretia Mott. And to my mother' 
I am indebted for my love of literature. I can 
remember, when I still slept in the trundle bed, 
waking before light in the morning and asking 
if it wasn't almost time to get up. And mother 
would answer, **Say over your verses." It 
would take me at least half an hour to go over 
the list. I began wdth the long cradle hymn of 
Watts: 



32 MAMA SANFOKD 



Hush, my babe, lie still and slumber, 
Holy angels guard thy bed. 



and 



When'er I take my walks abroad^ 

How many poor I see. 
What shall I render to my God 

For all His gifts to me ? 

And I remember with great delight I used to 
say over those glorious lines, still in our hymn 
books : 

Brightest and best of the sons of the morning, 
Dawn on our darkness and lend us thine aid. 

Star of the East, the horizon adorning, 

Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid. 

and the remaining stanzas of that noble hymn. I 
do not suppose a child of five or six years could 
comprehend the beauty of this grand poetry, 
but I know that some of its music entered my 
soul, and its inspiration also. And I know that 
this training not only made me familiar with 
poetic diction and poetic imagery, but that this 
and my familiarity with the Holy Scriptures 
formed my literary taste. 

I read and studied the Bible; chapter after 
chapter I could repeat entire. And I am very 
sure that when I was twelve years old no one 




MARY CLARK SANFORD 
Maria Sanford's Mother 



MARIA SANFOED 33 

could have made a mistake in quoting a pas- 
sage from the early books of the Bible all 
through Kings and including Job, the Psalms 
and Proverbs and most of the New Testament — 
no one, I say, could have misquoted, and I 
should not have recognized the error. This ac- 
quaintance with the exquisite diction and glo- 
rious imagery of King James ' version has been 
to me of unspeakable value, not only in the 
strengthening of character but in the formation 
of literary taste. This love for the grand old 
diction makes me impatient with the weaker 
forms of the Revised Version, which may be 
sometimes a little plainer, but have so often lost 
the noble imagery and poetic rhythm of the 
Hebrew Scriptures. 

My mother took for her motto in the training 
of her children the saying of some distinguished 
man: *^Fill the measure with wheat and there 
will be no room for the chaif.'' I have often in 
later years recommended to mothers that they 
follow her example in teaching their children, 
instead of senseless jingles, noble poems which 
will be priceless seed grain in the mind of the 
child, bearing rich harvest in later years. I 
once gave this talk in a place where I was well 
acquainted, and after the lecture a woman 
whom I knew came to me and said : **But, Miss 

3 



34 MARIA SANFOED 

Sanford, I haven't time.'' I knew that her lit- 
tle daughter had dainty embroidered dresses 
for summer, and rich, warm, soft ones for win- 
ter ; and wraps and garments for every season 
and every need, and I thought : * ' So much time 
for the body that perishes and no time for the 
immortal soul which starves in darkness, mak- 
ing no moan. ' ' 

I have said that my parents were religious, 
and I should say something of the religious 
training of my childhood. While my parents 
would have been shocked at the idea of a base- 
ball game or a theatrical performance on Sun- 
day, the day was never, in our home, kept in 
that strict, dreadful fashion that too often 
prevailed in those days, as in the case of the 
little girl whose playthings were all put away 
Saturday night, and who was allowed, after 
sundown on Sunday, to go to walk in the 
graveyard. She heard someone say that heaven 
was an eternal Sunday. She came to her mother 
in distress and said: ^^Mama, don't you think, 
if I am real good all the week, God will let me go 
down to hell Saturday afternoon and have a 
good time 1 ' ' 

The schools, when I was young, had only a 
half holiday on Saturday. Sunday was never 
dreaded by me, except the hours spent in 



MARIA SANFOED 35 

church. I set myself the stint to read ten 
chapters in the Bible on Sunday, and often 
exceeded that number, but I didn't keep still. 
I remember once my father offering me fifty 
cents, if I would keep still half an hour. It 
was a great prize. I think up to that time I 
had never had so large a sum of money, but I 
didn't get it. So sitting still in church or 
prayer meeting was a terror to me. After a 
little while I thought my stomach went round 
and round. I now know it was a nervous sen- 
sation caused by enforced quiet upon a very 
active child. It was a great blessing to me 
that when I was nine years of age my little 
brother came. Somebody must stay at home 
with the baby; and though I admit I was a 
little timid — for there was nothing but the flies 
and the chickens, both of which I thought sung 
a different song on Sundays from other days, 
and an occasional dog that passed, but I was 
afraid of dogs — I preferred staying alone 
with the baby to sitting still in church. 

Religion was never a sad and doleful thing 
in our household. We were taught to love 
our Heavenly Father. Two incidents illus- 
trating this are especially prominent in my 
mind. One was when my oldest sister was 
about sixteen and had a little party. All 



36 MAMA SANFORD 

along our childhood, father and mother en- 
tered into our plays. Even when we were 
little things and played ^^I spy the thimble/' 
father would sit like a graven image, holding 
up his newspaper to see nothing while we hid 
the thimble in his coat collar or his ear. And 
mother was never too tired or too busy to 
rummage the garret for things that would help 
us in our play. On this particular evening we 
had had charades and other '* dress-up 
games," and father and mother had been in it 
as much as any of us, and the time had passed 
in great glee. At ten o'clock, when the neigh- 
bor young folks had gone, we sat around the 
stove talking it over and laughin,g as we re- 
membered hoAv funny this and how bright that 
was. When father said ^'Let us kneel down 
and thank our Heavenly Father for these 
pleasures" — it was not his custom to have 
evening prayer, he always had morning 
prayer — we knelt down and he voiced our 
gratitude to God for the fun and frolic that 
had made our home bright. If Ave teach our 
children to thank God for their pleasures, 
they will not be likely to seek amusements on 
which they cannot ask His blessing. 

The other instance was when I was quite a 
little girl. There were no orphan asylums in 



MARIA SANFORD 37 

those days, and children left without protec- 
tors were bonnd by the selectmen to some 
family who gave them support and schooling 
for which they gave service until they were 
eighteen. A little bound girl lived some dis- 
tance below us. It was rumored that she had 
not been kindly treated ; and one night in early 
autumn, just before it was time for us to go to 
bed, a man came by telling the story that the 
people had accused this girl of stealing a 
brooch (they afterwards found that she had 
not stolen it). They had whipped her all they 
dared, then they had kept her in the cellar on 
bread and water; but she insisted that she 
didn't know where it was. And at last they 
had hun,g her in the well, thinking to frighten 
her into confession. Her screams brought 
the neighbors and relief. This story was very 
exciting to little children; and when, soon 
after, mother put us to bed after hearing us 
say our prayers, and kissed us good night and 
left us, we talked it over and began to cry, and 
called mother. She told us that we needn't 
be afraid, that we had father and mother to 
take care of us; and we were pacified for the 
moment. But we soon called her back, and a 
third time. Then I remember she sat down 
on our bed, and I can hear her voice as if it 



38 MARIA SANFORD 

were but yesterday as she softly said: ^^I 
can't be with you all the time, and your father 
can't be with you all the time, but your Heav- 
enly Father is always near. Now say over 
after me, ' Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace 
whose mind is stayed on Thee; because he 
trusteth in Thee.' " And she had us say it over 
and over until we could say it alone ; and then 
she said, */Now keep saying it until you go to 
sleep." And so we did, and fell sweetly asleep, 
trusting in the care of the Heavenly Father. 

It was a little old brown house, and the 
furniture was very plain; but not to have 
toddled about in a palace and inherited mil- 
lions would I sacrifice those precious memo- 
ries of a Christian home. 

We were by no means prize model children^ 
but a somewhat harum-scarum lot. We par- 
took much more of the energy of our father 
than of the quiet grace of our mother. I re- 
member my mother's telling of a reproof her 
father gave her. She was visiting at home 
when her three little girls were small. Her 
father's big house had been remodeled so that 
her brother with his family of seven children 
lived in half of it. Grandmother was very 
fond of children and always had in her pantry 



MARIA SANFORD 39 

something nice, a piece of pie, cookies or candy 
to give them. Sometimes the children from 
the other part of the house would slip into the 
pantry and help themselves. Grandfather 
said to mother: *^Mary, your children are 
perfectly honest. Not one of them would take 
a thing out of grandmother's pantry without 
permission any more than she would cut off 
her right hand. But not one of them can go 
through that door without hitting both sides.'' 
My earliest connection with the temperance 
society was when I was four or five years old. 
An organization called ^'The Cold Water 
Army" extended throughout New England 
and probably other states. All the boys and 
girls were nrged to join this organization. 
We had meetings and parades. Every mem- 
ber had a paper diploma about a foot square 
on which was printed our pledge and several 
songs. I remember the first verse of one was : 

We cold water girls and boys 
Freely renounce the dangerous joys 
Of brandy, whiskey, rum and gin. 
The serpent's lure to death and sin. 

People at that time were very hopeful of 
speedily crushing intemperance. My mother 



40 MARIA SANFORD 

said she expected that when her children were 
grown it would be a thin,g of the past. She 
little thought that her youngest daughter 
would be over fourscore years old before the 
sale of intoxicating liquors would be made 
illegal in our country, and that even then the 
fight for temperance must still go on. 

In the fall before I was six years of age my 
father moved his family back to Saybrook; 
and for four years he took charge of the farm 
of his uncle, George Chapman, and we lived in 
the old Chapman homestead, built by my 
great-grandfather, to which was attached, as 
a summer kitchen, the first frame house built 
in Saybrook. The farm had been in the hands 
of renters and was much run doAvn ; but father 
was interested in it as if it were his OAvn, and 
did much to build it up. My sister and I used 
to help on the farm. We dropped corn and 
potatoes in the spring, and picked up potatoes 
in the fall, and husked corn ; and by this means 
earned a little money to buy our clothes. It 
was helpful and not hard work. 

In those years, too, I rem.ember I used to pick 
huckleberries. The huckleberry fields were two 
miles and a half from my home, and sometimes 
a lot of little girls used to go together. But 
although I was a little lonesome I preferred to 



MARIA SANFORD 41 

go alone because then I stuck to my job and filled 
my pail, I sold the berries to my grandmother 
and aunts ; and bought in this way, more than 
once, my winter dress. It was while we were 
here on the farm that my father finished pay- 
ing off the debt he had carried, and easier 
times dawned for us. It was here also that 
my only brother was born. This home was 
half a mile distant from my grandfather 
Clark's; and though as farmers my parents 
rose early, I used frequently to go up to my 
grandfather's and back before breakfast. 
Grandfather used to say: **That child will 
get over that when she is big enough to be 
good for anything." But I never did get over 
it; and I am as fond of risin,g early now as I 
was then. 

One more trivial incident of that earliest 
home perhaps I should recall. It is my hav- 
ing measles. My uncle Elias, my father's 
younger half-brother, boarded "with us for 
some months. He was very fond of me and 
used to hold me in his lap. He thought he 
was immune because he had had the disease in 
childhood. But several members of my fam- 
ily, including myself, seemed to require two 
doses; and he took the disease a second time 



42 MARIA SANFORD 

from me. One day while I was confined to 
the house a crazy woman came. Mother had 
often been kind to her and taken her in. 
There were no hospitals for the insane in 
those days, and crazy people wandered the 
streets unless some member of their family 
could take care of them. I strayed out of the 
house and down to the brook; and when 
mother called me and asked me why I went 
away, I said I didn't like to hear Becky "Wil- 
liams talk. It is pitiful to think what those 
poor creatures suffered in those days. In a 
house not a mile below ours a man, violently 
insane, was shut into a room in a part of the 
barn by big posts, one of which he once sawed 
in two with a comb and thus escaped. An- 
other prominent family, where there was an 
old woman mildly insane but not fit to live 
with the rest of the family, kept her in a room 
where she ate and slept. One day they 
smelled fire and traced it to her room. They 
went in and found the room full of smoke, and 
she was in bed. They said, **"Why, aunt 
Nabby, the house is on fire." 

**Yes,'' she said, **I know it, but I poured 
on all the water there was in the teakettle.'' 

It has seemed to me that Nabby 's philosophy 
is much the way that many people attack 



MARIA SANFORD 43 

abuses that should be corrected. Instead of 
taking the trouble to go to the root of the evil 
and ferret it out they do the easy, handy thing, 
**pour on all the water there is in the tea- 
kettle" and then go to bed. 



CHAPTER II 
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE 

Tlie Sanford Association of America trace 
a great branch of the Sanford family to Thomas 
Sanford, who came to Milford, Connecticut, 
about 1639, and died there in 1681. The family 
has been proud of its lineage, and holds re- 
unions to keep alive family interest and ac- 
quaintance. 

Maria Sanford 's ancestors lived, as far back 
as 1646, in that part of Connecticut where Rob- 
ert Chapman was given a grant of land in what 
later became the town of Saybrook. This land 
has always remained in the family; a Robert 
Chapman now living on the historic site. Maria 
Sanford 's grandmother Lucretia was born on 
the estate and was married in 1797 to Samuel 
Sanford. The third of their seven children was 
Henry Elisha Sanford, born in 1802. 

Captain Elisha Chapman, great grandfather 
of Maria Sanford was a soldier in the French 
and Indian wars, and served as Captain 
throughout the Revolution. There are many 

44 



MARIA SANFORD 45 

interesting stories told of Mrs. Chapman's ex- 
perience during the war, while her husband was 
away and she cared for her large family of 
children and her aged parents. One is that the 
daughter Lucretia, Maria Sanford's grand- 
mother, saw the great Lafayette when her 
mother served him and his aide a dinner at the 
homestead. Some of the older daughters 
assisted, but the little Lucretia was shut with 
the other younger children in an upper room 
to be out of the way. So they had to content 
themselves with looking at the great man from 
an upper window. Such a family story could 
not fail to seize the imagination of the small 
Maria. 

The parents of Maria Sanford, Henry and 
Mary Sanford, had four children : Elizabeth, the 
oldest, born in 1829, married Asa Kirtland and 
had seven children. She died in 1880. The 
second, Clarissa, born in 1834, married, and left 
at her death in 1870 one daughter. The young- 
est of the family, Rufus, born in 1846, is the 
only one of the children surviving. 

The third child of the family, Maria Louise, 
was born at Saybrook, Connecticut, December 
19, 1836. Of her earliest childhood she remem- 
bered enough of the Christmas when she was 
five years old to give a vivid picture scores of 



46 MARIA SANFORD 

years later of the loving care with which her 
mother made the day a happy one for the small 
family. The day before Christmas she made 
little mince pies and quince tarts for the chil- 
dren to give to their young friends. The eager 
Maria delighted to watch the marvelous process 
of notching the edges of the pies, and of cutting 
delicate strips of crust to put across the tarts. 
Christmas eve the children hung up their stock- 
ings and coaxed their father to do likewise. But 
they had to put their mts to work to fill it, for 
he wore, according to the custom of that time, 
long woolen stockings that came up over the 
knee. When the gifts the children had been 
preparing under their mother's direction had 
been swallowed up by the stocking, and the 
cavernous opening was seemingly as great as 
ever, the mother brought thin delicious dough- 
nuts, beloved of their father, and then promised 
to put in plenty of popcorn balls and molasses 
candy. The stocking w^ould not fill up, and the 
oldest sister thought of a great red apple. 
Wlien she returned from the cellar with that 
she brought also a huge potato, seven inches 
long, proposing to put it in the toe. Wliile one 
girl scrubbed the potato and wrapped it in tis- 
sue paper, another carefully removed all the 
things from the stocking, and then put the 



MARIA SANFORD 47 

potato in first. As a final tonch, one pnt a 
carefully wrapped wdshbone on the top^ and the 
stocking was at last filled. 

With nothing except what had been prepared 
at home, an apron, mittens, a rag doll ; with no 
Christmas tree — they had never heard of such 
a thing — they enjoyed all the delightful mystery 
and pleasure of giving that heart could \vish. 
Seventy-five years afterward Maria remem- 
bered the preparation for that day. Such hap- 
piness in poverty, with simple pleasures, had a 
lifelong effect on her character. 

For nine years she was the youngest, and 
was always an alert, eager, interested child. 
She had an adoration for her mother so great 
that when she neared home on her way from 
school she would run as fast as she could, call- 
ing ** Mother, mother, where are you?" When 
the youngest child, a boy, was born, Maria 
adopted him as her special charge, and felt that 
she had a great new interest. 

From earliest childhood she was accustomed 
to the institution of family prayers, not only in 
her own home but in the homes of relations and 
friends. She learned to repeat the Psalms, and 
had regular Bible study on Sunday afternoons. 
Her life-long love of the Bible proves that this 
was not made the irksome task which many 



48 MARIA SANFORD 

New England children have fonnd it to be. One 
of the best lectures she was giving in the last 
years of her life Avas entitled Beauties of the 
Bible. 

When Maria was ten years of age the family 
moved to Meriden, Connecticut, where the 
father worked for his brother. Up to that time 
Maria attended country school. When she 
reached the age of fourteen she began to attend 
the academy at Meriden, walking three miles 
daily to and from school and helping her mother 
out of school hours with the housework. As 
the older sisters had married soon after the 
removal to Meriden, and gone to homes of their 
own, Maria was her mother's only helper. 

It soon became apparent that the young girl 
thirsted for an education. She was always a 
hard worker at school, and had an ambition that 
hated to accept defeat. At one time, when the 
teacher gave extra problems in arithmetic to 
be worked at home, Maria had to return to 
school with one unsolved. When she learned 
that no one had been able to work it, she got 
excused from school, returned home and worked 
until she had solved it. She was the only one 
who mastered the difficulty. 

There was a family saying that Maria was so 
good as a child that, according to the old Puri- 




MARIA SANFORD 
The Connecticut Yankee 



MARIA SANFOBD 49 

tan belief, she could not live to grow xip. Her 
singular unselfishness was the cause of an 
amusing story which is still told in the family. 
Her small brother had always observed his sis- 
ter, when helping herself from a dish of apples, 
reach for one with decayed spots, and supposed 
she liked them best. One day, therefore, when 
he went to a neighbor's on an errand, and the 
woman asked if he thought his family would 
like some apples she had which had begun to 
decay, he answered at once, * * 0, yes, I am sure 
we can use them, for Maria loves rotten 
apples.'' 

She seems to have been a healthy child; she 
had inherited from her father a strong phy- 
sique, and from her mother high ideaJs- From 
the very outset she was taught that life was 
given us to use for something worth while; 
that it was a precious gift, and that it was 
sinful to waste it. So lofty was the teaching 
that it was considered sinful to read novels. 
And at the mature age of eleven years the 
young girl resolved, after realizing that she had 
actually read one, not to read any more fiction. 
Her older sister had had a year's subscription 
to the Boston Atheneum given her, and one 
rainy Saturday Maria took it to a favorite ref- 
uge in the attic and read through a continued 

4 



50 MARIA SANFORD 

story. After she sat back to think of it she said 
to herself *^Why, that is nothing more nor less 
than a novel V^ Then she made a secret resolve 
to refrain from such wickedness; a resolve 
which she kept until she learned in normal 
school that some of the world's great literature 
is cast in the form of narration. 

A strong natural desire for reading was 
stimulated by the study of history and church 
doctrine. Her thirst for knowledge grew so 
that by the time she was sixteen she knew much 
of the world's history and had acquired a love 
for it that remained one of her greatest inter- 
ests in life. The mother had taught the Psalms 
and other beautiful poetry to the children so 
that they had a rich inheritance even without 
novels. It is worthy of notice that as long as 
she lived, Maria cared little for this most pop- 
ular form of literature. When the oldest 
daughter, on leaving home, received from her 
father her marriage portion, Maria asked for 
hers then instead of waiting for it until she was 
ready to be married. Her explanation that she 
wanted to use the money to go to the New 
Britain Normal School found favor with both 
her parents. With very little money, and a 
scanty wardrobe in which a red delaine dress 
was the most elegant item, the strong-hearted 



MARIA SANFORD 51 

young girl set forth upon her first journey away 
from home. The New Britain Normal School 
was a co-educational institution with pleasant 
social relationships, but Maria Sanford was 
studying too hard all the time she was there 
to reap the benefits of them. She once let 
several weeks go by without writing home ; and 
when her father sent an anxious letter, she got 
up at four o'clock to answer it. He replied 
that she needn't mind writing often if she had 
to get up before daylight to do it. So unremit- 
tingly did she work that she completed the 
course with honors, graduating in 1855, at the 
age of nineteen. 

At her graduation she wrote an essay enti- 
tled What of the Future? the opening words 
and the climax of Avhich she remembered word 
for word when she was eighty years old. She 
always regarded them with approval. The 
essay began, ^^The future lies before us and we 
can make it what we will ; no deed, no word, no 
thought of ours but leaves its deathless record 
there, and blots once made can never be ef- 
faced. ' ' The climax she liked for its imperative 
ring. She thought it was a good motto, and said 
it was always easier for her to folloAv an excla- 
mation point than a question mark. The climax 
was **Fear not! faint not! fail not I" 



52 MARIA SANFORD 

Some time after her graduation from nor- 
mal school, the Honorable John D. Philbrick, 
who was principal at the time she was a student, 
and afterward superintendent of the Boston 
public schools, said of her: ^* Maria Sanford 
had unconunon energy and vigor, and was con- 
spicuous for industry, fidelity and earnestness. 
What her hands found to do she did with all 
her might. ' ' 

After finishing her course at Normal School 
she began teaching in a country school at 
Gilead, forty miles from home, at a salary of 
ten dollars a month. So shy and so untried 
was she in the solemn field of teaching that 
she took a position as far away as she could 
in order not to be disgraced at home if she 
proved a failure. Forty miles was farther in 
those days than four hundred now. The first 
year was a bitter experience for her, because 
she had not learned to love teaching. She 
said she used to lie awake nights until she 
could tell the time by the stars as well as a 
sailor; thinking, wondering, pondering, and 
praying to be guided aright. She was never 
satisfied with her own work at Gilead, though 
others did not seem to think it a failure; and 
they hired her for a second term. But she 
said there were many times when, if she could 



MARIA SANFORD 53 

have found lier way to the bottom of the neigh- 
boring Atlantic Ocean without the sin of suicide 
on her soul, she should have gone there. It 
was bitter; but she was learning her trade, 
with no teacher but experience and her own 
conscience. 

Her first triumph came in this school. One 
day a county superintendent came to visit. 
He sat all the afternoon saying nothing, and 
when he left said nothing. Her heart stood 
still. Later he told her, *'I have been watch- 
ing your children all the afternoon. You said 
nothing. Each one seemed ito be doing ex- 
actly as he wanted to do, and each one wanted 
to do right ! '^ She said it was the most beauti- 
ful compliment she had ever received. 

The first recorded instance of her noted love 
of humor occurred in this school. The chil- 
dren had a habit of chewing dried apples in 
school instead of the spruce gum of a later 
day; and just as country school teachers of 
the eighties forbade gum chewing, this teacher 
of the fifties forbade the chewing of dried 
apples. One day she saw a great boy sitting 
near her desk working his jaws suspiciously 
and said, *^ Samuel, are you eating dried 
apples?" 

**No'm, lisped Samuel with difficulty, **I'in 



54 MARIA SANFORD 

thusth puttin' one to tlioak.'^ She treasured 
that answer all her life. 

After the second year there she improved 
her condition and her income by going to Glas- 
tonbury to teach in the lower room of a two 
grade school. She was progressing a little. 
The next year came still further progress, and 
she got a better place nearer home; for she 
wasn't afraid of failure any longer. She was 
getting her feet under her and slowly gather- 
ing what no human being can aiford to be 
without if he is to be of any use in the world: 
that is, self-respect. She taught the upper 
grades now, and began to realize that she must 
develop her disciplinary powers. She remem- 
bered long afterward James McGuire, a strap- 
ping Irish bo}^ of fifteen. He was bigger than 
she and thought he could defy her. One day 
he had refused to pick up some corn he had 
scattered on the floor. She knew it was now 
or never, and with a mute prayer for strength 
started the first lesson in applied physical dis- 
cipline that she had given. Greatly to James 
McGuire 's surprise, he presently found him- 
self on his back in the hall with her hand on 
his collar and her knee on his chest. 

*^Will you pick up that corn?'' she said. 



MARIA SANFORD 55 

And he blubbered a chokin,g reply, **Y-Y-es, 
ma ^am. ' ' 

That was on Friday, and she went home for 
Saturday and Sunday. When she returned 
Monday morning she met one of the school 
trustees who shook hands with her, laughed 
heartily and said, ^'I guess you'll do, young 
lady." And after she got to school she over- 
heard one of the boys saying to another: 
^^ Golly, but teacher's strong." After that 
she had no more trouble with unruly boys. 

She taught there for a year and then went 
to Middlefield, Connecticut, for still better 
wages. In 1859 her father died and Maria's 
first terrible grief for a time prostrated her. 
His death occurred after an illness of four 
days while the mother was away from home. 
He was a man of such sterling worth that his 
loss was deeply felt in the community, and the 
eulogy pronounced at the funeral was heart- 
felt and comforting. Printed as a memorial, 
it rings today with the solemnity of great, 
simple truths. The delicate mother's forti- 
tude enabled her to join in the hymn, which 
according to the custom of that day was sung 
by the friends gathered around the grave. 
Her friends said she was uplifted as she sang, 
and seemed to be looking within the veil. The 



56 MAMA SANFORD 

memory of her calm face came to the storm 
wrecked Maria that evening when she was 
startled by the call to supper. The shock of 
realizing that the world must go on as before 
brought to her one of the many times of read- 
justment to the burdens of her life. Her 
father had taught her never to sink under a 
blow; her mother, always to be cheerful. 

A passage from a letter written by a cousin 
of Miss Sanford's gives a touch of the home 
life in Meriden. **I am thinking of yon in 
your room in the home at Meriden writing a 
dialogue for the pupils, and reciting snatches 
of prose and poetry, giving me a pleasant Sun- 
day home while I was teaching in Yalesville. 
I am afraid I did not thoroughly appreciate 
then my good fortune to know you and your 
saintly and sainted father and mother so inti- 
mately, but I have looked back on those days 
many times since with thankfulness and ap- 
preciation. ' ' 

The home was broken up for a time, while 
the mother went to live with the oldest mar- 
ried sister, and the young brother returned 
with Maria to Middlefield. She had as assist- 
ant a young woman who had been with her in 
normal school in New Britain; and she had 
the distinction of teaching in what was for 



MARIA SANFORD 57 

those days a very fine new school building, a 
model very much in advance of those around 
it. Instead of the one room school with the old 
wood stove in front of the teacher's desk, this 
school-house had a recitation room provided 
with a large library. Both the heating and 
the ventilating were something very modern; 
the latter was effected by large ventilators in 
the roof which were connected with flues that 
took out either warm or cold air from the 
room. The heating system was so arranged 
that pure air from the outside was brought in- 
to the room over coils around a large box 
stove. Maria Sanford had a lifelong hobby 
for fresh air. She was liable to feel stifled 
where others felt comfortable. 

At this time she was a slender young 
woman, considerably above medium height 
and of somewhat florid complexion, and a 
quiet, grave voice. She was very di^gnified, 
thoroughly in earnest, and appreciated the 
responsibilities of her position as a teacher. 
Teaching did not by any means fill all her time. 
Even then she was a great walker but her 
walks invariably had an objective. On one 
occasion she and her assistant walked nine 
miles from Middlefield to Yalesville where the 
mother was living; upon their arrival Maria, 



58 MARIA SANFOED 

without sitting down to rest, set to work iron- 
ing a large basket of clothes, and kept at it 
until the ironing was all done. 

The small daughters of the widowed sister 
who lived with the mother the three years 
while Miss Sanford was in Middlefield, used 
to run away at first when their Aunt Maria 
returned for week ends and holidays, merely 
because her energy was so great that her rapid 
movements frightened them. She was very 
kind to them, but she was so different from 
their quiet, gentle mother and their grand- 
mother that she had to work to gain their con- 
fidence. Her own confidence and self poise 
had come with success in her work, and with 
the responsibility of supporting her frail mother 
and delicate young brother. 

Her unusual superiority of mind and per- 
son were so evident that they attracted a young 
man teaching at that time in Yalesville. The 
attraction became mutual; when Miss Sanford 
went to New Haven to teach and made a home 
there for her mother and brother the young 
people became engaged. The following ac- 
count is in Miss Sanford 's own words, given 
on her eightieth birthday: ^^Near this time 
I had the bitterest experience of my life, which 
I speak of with the utmost reluctance, but 



MAKIA SANFORD 59 

which had so intimate a bearing upon my life 
and caused me to turn such a square corner 
that it would not be fair to omit it. You have 
asked me for the salient matters in my life, 
and if they are worth anything to you, it would 
not be right to leave out the most important 
of them all. 

'^I became engaged, while at New Haven, to 
a young theological student who became, 
eventually, editor of one of the leading Chris- 
tian ma^gazines of this country. We were 
both passing through that perilous period 
when young people, brought up in strictest 
doctrinal belief, begin to widen their view- 
point about the essential matters of life — it 
may interest you to know that I read Darwin's 
Origin of Species before it was published in 
this country. This book, among others on the 
natural sciences and natural philosophy, en- 
tranced and interested us beyond measure. 
We felt that they must be true, and yet they 
disturbed our fundamental faiths. We could 
not see, as yet, that geology, astronomy and 
the allied sciences reveal God in his goodness 
and greatness. We thought they simply con- 
troverted and tried to disprove God. Poor, 
blind children that we were. Eeligion was first 
of all things in my mind. I wrestled through 



60 MARIA SANFOUD 

weeks of doubt and despair. My reason was 
arrayed against my conviction, and I was the 
storm center in an awful void between the two. 

^^My final peace and light came to me 
through prayer, and I came to feel that all was 
one, and that everything was somehow in per- 
fect tune, thou,gh we could not read the har- 
monies aright. And so I found the peace 
which passeth all understanding. But my 
friend did not; at least, not then, and I was 
led to break my engagement with him and 
throw myself more and more deeply into the 
studies which, I now felt convinced, must fill 
my life and make up my sum of days upon 
earth. I passed through this before I was 
twenty-five, and was given strength and abid- 
ing peace to take up my studies alone.'' 

One can only conjecture how different her 
life would have been if this estrangement had 
not occurred. But late in life Miss Sanford 
told a friend that she would have been much 
happier had she married. To the reader of the 
biography of the eminent divine whom she men- 
tioned, it seems that if she had not had this 
experience her development would have been 
very different. The young man, at the time of 
the engagement a professed atheist, came later 
to be regarded as the most orthodox of evan- 



MARIA SANFORD 61 

gelical preachers, noted for his sincerity, 
earnestness, and conservatism. Although he 
never finished his college conrse, he had, later 
in life, numerous honorary degrees conferred 
upon him by various colleges. A great travel- 
ler, a well kno^\'n speaker, he was noted for his 
mde and accurate knowledge both of facts and 
of literature, and for his remarkable memory. 
He once stated that if the entire Bible should 
be destroyed, he could reproduce two-thirds of 
it from memory. The promise of power was 
strong in the young man, and the similarity 
between the two is very apparent to the reader. 
Thrice married, he was a strong opponent of 
woman suffrage. Miss Sanford, though she did 
not espouse the cause of woman suffrage until 
after she was seventy years of age, became an 
ardent exponent of the cause. She died only 
a few months before suffrage was granted to 
the women of this country. Miss Sanford, like 
him, became a great public speaker and 
preacher; she too was noted for the variety 
and accuracy of her knowledge. Very few peo- 
ple could compare with her in her memory of 
poetry. But it is odd to note that whereas she 
says that she broke her engagement because 
she felt that her friend did not hold fast to his 
religious faith, she herself was loiown for most 



62 MARIA SANFORD 

of her life as unusually broad in her religious 
views. One of her colleagues at Swarthmore 
said that Miss Sanford was so far ahead of her 
time in religious thought that it took him fifty 
years to catch up with her. Her private happi- 
ness was sacrificed in this case as it was all her 
life long for what she believed to be the only 
right course for a Christian to take. 

With the removal to New Haven, where she 
taught for five years, she took another step for- 
ward. Her work and her salary were both ad- 
vanced, and she could have her mother and 
brother at home with her. 

The nearness to Yale University inspired her 
to obtain a higher education, but she knew of 
no college that admitted women. Determined 
in spite of circumstances to learn as much as 
possible, she obtained an introduction to the 
eminent historian John Fiske, and asked his 
advice about her studies. He very kindly made 
out a list of reading, mainly in history and sci- 
ence, which she pursued with the aid of books 
from the public library in New Haven. It was 
a stiff course. She read through Grote's His- 
tory of Greece in twelve big volumes, and was 
surprised to find the first volume pretty well 
thumbed, the second less so ; she had to cut the 
leaves of the remaining ten volumes. She 



MAKIA SANFORD 63 

studied all this history with maps to guide her, 
took up logic, science, and a number of other 
subjects, and taught at the same time. In addi- 
tion she took to board two girls who otherwise 
could not have gone to school. She did most 
of the housework because of her mother's frail 
health, and still had time to help the girls with 
their lessons. 

When Miss Sanford was still in the twenties 
she did something else which for a young 
woman in those days, one who had to earn her 
living and keep a home on a salary smaller 
than any man in the same position would have 
had, must have required both uncommon cour- 
age and uncommon generosity. She asked a 
young woman friend to lend a thousand dollars 
to three young men in whom she was interested, 
in order that they might undertake some busi- 
ness venture in the South. Miss Sanford be- 
came surety for the payment of the money, in 
case the young men failed to pay it. The his- 
tory of that loan, and the payment of the money, 
principal and interest, is a remarkable instance 
of high integrity on the part of Miss Sanford 
and of the friend who made the loan. 

In 1875, many years after this money had 
been borrowed, the friend offered to give up 
the notes she held, if Miss Sanford could raise 



64 MARIA SANFORD 

the principal ; she said she would gladly waive 
the interest. Miss Sanford thought at that time 
she could redeem one note in a few weeks. She 
said she had been delayed in the pa^mient of 
another debt of nine hundred dollars which she 
had paid. She assured her creditor that if she 
was spared life and health she fully intended 
paying interest for the full time, and should 
feel just as ready to do so if the notes were 
redeemed as she should if they were held. Sev- 
eral times the friend needed the money ; once at 
the time of her approaching marriage. Miss 
Sanford felt hurt when she was pressed; and 
said she could not sleep in her grave if the 
money was not paid. Her friend never lost 
faith in Miss Sanford 's integrity, though it 
was more than fifty years before the entire 
debt was cancelled. Her friend, some years 
Miss Sanford 's senior, wrote a letter of hearty 
congratulation when Carleton College con- 
ferred a doctor's degree upon Miss Sanford. 
Even at that time the debt was not paid, and 
Miss Sanford said the letter meant more to her 
than the degree. 

After five years of teaching at New Haven 
Miss Sanford went again for a year to Middle- 
field, because she was offered a better salary. 
But even this, which was thirty-six dollars a 



MAEIA SANFORD 65 

montli and board, did not satisfy her ambition. 
She wanted to become principal of a graded 
school, but felt that the people of Connecticut 
were too conservative to give such a position 
to a woman. The lasting influence she wielded 
over her pupils is evident in a letter written by 
a university professor to her some years after 
her retirement. The writer had been her pupil 
that last year in Middlefield; and retained 
nearly fifty years later vivid memories of the 
teacher of his childhood. 

'^It must have been somewhere between 1866 
and 1868 when I was from ten to twelve years 
old, that you kept me after school one after- 
noon in the Cedar Grove schoolhouse in Middle- 
field, Connecticut. I had been unusually mis- 
chievous that day. The other children as well 
as myself expected that a serious punishment 
Avas forthcoming. 

*^You drew me upon your lap, — great, hulk- 
ing boy that I was, and spoke to me somewhat 
as follows: *I never expect to become great 
myself, but hope that some of my pupils will 
become such. In that way I will hope to be- 
come great indirectly. You have given me con- 
siderable trouble by your pranks. You seem 
to have an active mind, and you can become a 

5 



66 MARIA SANFORD 

great man if you will apply yourself diligently 
and give up your mischief making ways.' 

*^ Before going home that afternoon, I prom- 
ised amendment, and from that time on I had 
and still have great love and admiration for 
you. In my boyish enthusiasm I used to take 
you out riding with old Ted, and used to take 
you out coasting on a great sled that my father 
had just made for me in his shop. 

'* After you left Middlefield I did not seem 
to know how to reach you, and as the years 
went on I had left only pleasant memories. At 
this late day I am rejoiced to learn of you and 
am looking forward with pleasure to seeing you 
in the early part of January. ' ' 

The fame of the unusual methods of the young 
teacher attracted many visitors, among them 
Mr. W. W. Woodruff, a long time superintend- 
ent of schools in Chester county, Pennsylvania. 
In a visit to a school in Connecticut he saw on 
the blackboard the motto: **We endeavor to 
do what we undertake.'' He was told it had 
been placed there by a teacher who had left the 
school five years before, and that the pupils 
would not have it erased. This so impressed 
him that he found out where she was teaching 
and went to visit her school. She had been 
called away by the severe illness of some mem- 



MARIA SANFORD 67 

ber of her family. She had made out a sched- 
ule for the children; and when the visitor ar- 
rived he found the school running itself. Such 
an unusual proceeding strengthened the im- 
pression he had already received, that he had 
found a remarkable teacher, and he de^t^erguined 
to try to get her to go to Pennsylvania. 

The chance occurred the next fall and found 
Miss Sanford ready to go farther west, where 
she believed there would not be so much preju- 
dice against giving women responsible posi- 
tions as there would be in what she called 
*Hhe land of steady habits". Superintendent 
Woodruff told the school board who wanted a 
teacher that she would not go for the salary 
they offered — forty dollars a month, but that he 
believed she would for forty-five dollars. And 
he offered, if any member of the board was dis- 
satisfied with the new teacher, or even * cleared 
his throat over the matter', to pay the extra 
twenty dollars for the four months' school from 
his own pocket. 



CHAPTER III 
THE TEACHER 

At the age of thirty-one Miss Sanford left 
her native state for the first time. She taught 
first at Parkersville, Pennsylvania, where she 
made almost a sensation among the Quakers 
of the community. Though she found herself, 
on the whole, very much in accord with a sect 
before unknown to her, yet her sturdy inde- 
pendence did not easily give way to some of 
their religious customs, and she had to endure 
some opposition. She had always been accus- 
tomed to opening school by reading the Scrip- 
tures and kneeling in prayer. This custom of 
course Quakers found obnoxious, but she ad- 
hered to it in spite of unfavorable criticism. 
Frhe fame of her unusual methods of teach- 
in"^ -travelled so fast that in the first four 
months' term she had two hundred visitors. 
One novelty which impressed them was the 
fact that pupils were trained to keep their at- 
tention fixed on their work when strangers 
came. Another- was the exercise of turning 

68 



MARIA SANFORD 69 

poetry into prose in order to see whether the 
children understood the poetry. The superin- 
tendent visited her school many times. Each 
visit strengthened his opinion that she was the 
most remarkable teacher he had known in an 
educational experience of twenty-five years, 
during which he had examined three thousand 
teachers, and made nearly as many visits to 
schools. He made careful notes of the work of 
the new teacher for publication in the county 
School Journal. The phenomenal attendance 
record of ninety-three per cent, instead of the 
usual seventy-five per cent of rural schools, 
testified to the hold she had on the pupils. 
More than forty years afterward, a year after 
she had retired from the University of Minne- 
sota, a doctor in New Jersey, hearing that Miss 
Sanford was going to be in Chestar County, 
wrote to Superintendent WoodruffjJ^ 

**My brother tells me that Miss Maria L. 
Sanford will be in West Chester soon. As an 
original pupil of Miss Sanford when she came 
to Chester County, and one of the bonnie twelve 
which she prized so highly, I am very anxious 
to again meet her. 

** Forty-two years ago she taught at Parkers- 
ville and it has always been a recollection of joy 
when I think of that time, as she did more to 



70 MARIA SANFORD 

create in me the love of knowledge than any 
teacher that I had the pleasure to go to. If 
you can give me the time when I can meet her, 
I shall consider it a great favor. ' ' 

The ^'bonnie twelve'' were the twelve pupils 
whose names were beautifully printed on a roll 
of honor which had been decorated in pen and 
ink work by Miss Sanford's brother, who was a 
draughtsman by profession. Each pupil had a 
copy for his own and another is still carefully 
preserved by the Sanf ord family. 

At the conclusion of the first term Miss San- 
ford's salary was raised one-third for the sum- 
mer term, and she was offered sixty dollars a 
month for the next year. But the neighboring 
town of Unionville offered more, and she went 
there to teach in Jacob Harvey's Academy. 
Some of the pupils followed, and so paid a 
double tax rate in order to be under her instruc- 
tion. Here as in her earlier schools Miss San- 
ford's tremendous energy continued to be the 
marvel of every one. While she was in Union- 
ville she used often to walk to the home of one 
of the directors, a distance of ten miles, arriv- 
ing in time for breakfast, in order to talk over 
school matters. Here she would pick up the 
baby, who was ill and fretful, and walk with him 
on her shoulder while she talked with his father 



MARIA SANFORD 71 

on school matters. It was remarked that she 
never failed to quiet the baby. 

One incident of this period is still fondly 
remembered by the pupils of the school. A 
fifteen year old girl, one of her pupils, Avas so 
impressed with Miss Sanford's spirit, that one 
day when the worst snowstorm known for 
years came and piled the snow as high as the 
fences, and every one thought school impos- 
sible, she insisted that Miss Sanford would 
not expect any of them to give up school for 
so small a thing as a snow-storm. So finally 
her father got a horse, and took his daughter 
on the saddle in front of him. After a time 
the drifts were too much for the horse, and 
the father turned back; but the little girl 
slipped from the saddle and plunged through 
on foot. Only a few children who lived near 
the school were present, but they saw her 
coming, and with shouts made a path for her. 
Miss Sanford made a fire in a room upstairs 
and sent to a near-by house for dry clothing 
for the child. It was days before she was able 
to get back home. This incident formed the 
basis for the school motto, ^^ Nothing is impos- 
sible to him who wills." The superintendent 
told that story to every school in the county. 

In the spring of 1869 twenty-five of the lead- 



72 MARIA SANFORD 

ing citizens in ten toAvns of the county began a 
campaign to have her elected county superin- 
tendent. They distributed a pamphlet that 
set forth her qualifications and signed their 
names to the leaflet. As to her scholarship 
they stated that with the exception of the clas- 
sics she was equal to the graduates of Harvard 
and Yale. Miss Sanford made a whirlwind 
campaign, visiting every voter and walking 
sometimes sixteen miles after school. But she 
was attempting something too radical; a 
woman superintendent had never been heard 
of, and she failed of election, a man gaining 
over her by a narrow margin. Although she 
did not become superintendent she was made 
principal of a school in another town, where 
she instituted the custom of having the four 
schools of the town meet together once a month 
for mutual improvement. Each school took 
its turn in showing what it had accomplished 
and demonstrated any new methods that had 
proved successful. This was carried out so 
much to the satisfaction of the townspeople 
that they ,made up an extra purse of money 
for her. So much antagonism from this arose 
among some of the teachers that one left the 
town. Her next innovation was to lecture at 
a teachers' institute. It came about natur- 



MARIA SANFORD 73 

ally. Teachers' institutes were held once a 
month and teachers had their choice of con- 
ducting their regular work or spending the day 
at the institute. In the absence of one of the 
regular speakers Miss Sanford was called 
upon to explain the method of some of her 
work, and found her real vocation. She be- 
gan to speak with great timidity, but gained 
courage as she proceeded, and at the close of 
the institute had added a new interest to the 
gatherings. From the first, her force of char- 
acter, her dignity, her earnestness, and her 
enthusiasm impressed all who heard her. 
Added to these she had inherited a voice of 
remarkable purity, flexibility and power. In 
a family of beautiful singers she could never 
carry a tune ; but her speaking voice had such 
power that it penetrated to the hearts of thou- 
sands. 

In order to understand why the young 
teacher felt timid about speaking before her 
colleagues, it is necessary to recall that as late 
as 1856 it was considered almost disgraceful 
for a woman to speak in public. In the His- 
tory of Women's Suffrage the statement is 
made that at the State Teachers' Association 
in New York, in 1856, the president. Professor 
Davis, of West Point, in referring to an ad- 



74 MAEIA SANFORD 

dress made by Susan B. Anthony in which she 
advocated opening schools, colleges and uni- 
versities to women, said: '*I am opposed to 
anything that has a tendency to impair the 
sensitive delicacy and purity of the female 
character or to remove the restraints of life. 
These resolutions are the first step in the 
school which seeks to abolish marriage, and 
behind this picture I see a monster of social 
deformity. I would rather have followed my 
wife or daughter to Greenwood Cemetery than 
to have had her stand here before this promiscu- 
ous audience and deliver that address." 

Public opinion did not change so rapidly in 
the sixties as it does now; it is safe to say that 
when Miss Sanford delivered her first address 
before a teachers' institute in Pennsylvania 
in 1868 she was braving public opinion almost 
as much as Susan B. Anthony had done twelve 
years earlier. The editor of the Pennsyl- 
vania School Journal, who heard the address, 
in referring to it afterwards said: **We well 
remember Miss Sanford 's paper before the 
State Teachers' Association at Allentown in 
1868. It was her first appearance before such 
a public audience, and she read under an in- 
tense nervous strain, little dreaming it was 
the first of thousands of such addresses she 



MARIA SANFOED 75 

was to deliver, warm from her own heart to 
the hearts of thousands of sympathetic hear- 
ers. She stood in front of the audience just 
inside of the rail, a young girl strung to nerv- 
ous tension, pale but resolute. The paper 
shook in her hand, but she had something to 
say, was saying it earnestly as she had done 
all her life, and her audience gave earnest at- 
tention. I remember again reading the proof 
of this paper for the report that was published 
in the Journal. The summer rain was falling 
on the maple leaves just outside the open win- 
dows, and we heard the steady drip of water 
through the pipes in the darkness. We came 
upon the suggestive lines quoted in the paper, 

Reach a hand through time to catch 
The far-off interest of tears. 

But it was the personality of the reader by 
which we were most impressed.'' 

The same editor on a later occasion asked 
Miss Sanford to deliver a lecture on astron- 
omy. He was conducting a Star Study Group 
in connection with the Young Men's Christian 
Association, and had been disappointed in a 
speaker for a certain meeting. When Miss 
Sanford protested that she knew nothing 
about astronomy the editor still urged her to 



76 MAEIA SANFORD 

give a talk. She finally consented, and after 
some preparation she gave an excellent talk, 
ending with Longfellow's poem. The Occulta- 
tion of Orion, which she recited with telling 
effect. 

From this time on she was sought frequently 
to give good advice to young teachers. One of 
her earliest lectures was on Moral Training 
in School, a subject which was always fore- 
most in her esteem. Among other thin,gs she 
held that, although moral training belongs to 
the home, it also belongs to the school and 
must begin in the character of the teacher. 
She emphasized the fact that moral culture 
never hinders but rather stimulates mental 
growth. She urged teachers always to bring 
a school under the dominion of love, to make 
gentleness and kindness the law of the play- 
ground, and industry and honesty that of the 
classroom, *^to fill every heart with love for 
all that is good and true, and kindle the soul 
with a longing for a noble life. Then," said 
she, ^' the intellect will brighten as if kindled 
by the smile of heaven." 

Another lecture was entitled How Can We 
Elevate Our Public Schools? In this forceful 
lecture she stated that we can work first to 
gather the children into the schools, then to 



MARIA SANFOED 77 

seek for high scholarship in teachers, then to 
show how infinitely superior is the spiritual to 
the physical nature; work to prove that neat- 
ness and beauty are better than the rod to 
secure good order; teach thoroughness; per- 
mit nothin^g in the schoolroom that would be 
condemned in the drawing-room of a culti- 
vated family, and teach the dignity of labor. 
Everyone acquainted with Miss Sanford in 
her later life will recognize these sentiments 
as very dear to her heart. 

Another lecture given many times at teach- 
ers' institutes was entitled Lessons in Man- 
ners and Morals. In those days it was a novel 
idea to advocate the teaching of manners and 
morals in school, but Miss Sanford was always 
ahead of her time. Among the things she 
urged upon the teachers in this lecture were 
the following: *^ Without in any way enter- 
ing upon the religious aspect of this question, 
either by upholding or disclaiming special 
tenets, I affirm that my experience leads me to 
believe that love of truth is no more inborn 
than love of mathematics. There are differ- 
ent degrees of capacity for each; but each, 
like the other, must be taught and learned. I 
maintain that however moral ideas may be ob- 
tained, moral training is necessary to secure 



78 MARIA SANFORD 

obedience to their requirements . . . But no 
further than we would trust to the child ^s educa- 
tion in mathematics to make him a good linguist 
can we trust his training in either of these to de- 
velop his moral nature and fit him for the re- 
sponsibilities of life/' 

Miss Sanford stated emphatically in this 
lecture a belief she held throughout her life 
when she said: *^Our ideas of education are 
too narrow and exclusive ; we are the devotees 
of books; we can conceive of no education 
without them; we are ready to deny the iden- 
tity of Homer and Shakespeare because they 
were so independent of such aid. Even those 
who avoid the cramming process still work too 
absolutely for scholastic development . . . 
It is urged by some that this moral training 
takes time and there is none to spare. Noth- 
ing was ever more ridiculous than this plea. 
Is there time enough for grammar, but none 
for honesty; time for mathematics but not for 
truth? Shall we devote hours to geography 
and grudge minutes to temperance? Shall we 
with scrupulous care insist upon exactness 
and elegance in speech and neglect that 
thoughtful kindness which lends a charm to 
the homeliest phrase? Is there time to pore 
over battles and learn of kings and none to 



MARIA SANFORD 79 

wake admiration for the faithful performance 
of daily duties? We can well fore^go some- 
thing of scholarship for the blessings of 
patriotism and virtue, but we are called to no 
such sacrifice. Intellectual progress is ad- 
vanced instead of being retarded by attention 
to moral culture. 

**Many are led to neglect all effort by the 
feeling of disgust with which they recall the 
ponderous and prosy lectures by which their 
young ears were bored. Such teaching should 
indeed be avoided, and any attempts at stated 
periods for moral instruction Avill be very 
likely to degenerate to formality and cant, but 
if we are filled with a sense of the importance 
of the subject and of our responsibility, the 
fitting opportunity will not be wanting." 

In the course of the lecture Miss Sanford 
urged that the influence of poetry should never 
be overlooked in teaching morals and man- 
ners. She recalled the power that m.usic had 
over her in her own childhood. ** Music," she 
said, ^*is a potent charm to drive away evil 
spirits. I remember in my childhood when 
we became pettish and quarrelsome our mother 
would call on us for a song, and by the time 
it was over the clouds would be dissipated 
and sunshine return again. Many a rock of 



80 MARIA SANFORD 

offense in the schoolroom may by this simple 
means be avoided; and not only a weary, rest- 
less hour be charmed away, but the moral tone 
of the school raised because the right spirit 
instead of the wron,g has prevailed. ' ' 

Because Miss Sanford had taught in all 
kinds of schools, including a one-room coun- 
try school, a two-room graded school, a high 
school, and an academy, she was prepared at 
teachers' institutes to aid teachers in all kinds 
of work. She gave them advice on school dis- 
cipline; she told them how to teach history; 
she ^ gave instruction in reading. Hei" talks 
were always very practical. She would urge 
the teachers to train the voice, and remind 
them that as a nation we are noted as nasal 
talkers. She urged them to watch their own 
faults and try to avoid them. In her advice 
on reading she urged them not to call on the 
best readers but to encourage good effort. 
That last suggestion was characteristic of 
Miss Sanford; she was known throu,ghout her 
whole teaching life as a champion of the poor 
student, the bad boy, the child not interested 
in school work; and she had remarkable suc- 
cess with the troublesome child. 

It was also characteristic of her that she 
gave talks to the teachers upon neatness and 




MARIA SANFORD 
The Teacher 



MARIA SANFORD 81 

order. She had the New England Puritan 
belief that cleanliness is next to godliness. 
She taught that neatness of person brings 
carefulness of morals, and that by raising the 
standard of neatness in the schoolroom the 
teachers would raise it in the community. 
She gave them the Puritan sentiment that 
goodness of nature is better than beauty of 
face, and urged them to give more attention 
to the useful than the useless in dress. 

With all this advice Miss Sanford urged the 
teachers not to be sentimental and to avoid 
the habit of reading either trashy or ** goody'' 
books, but instead to store the mind with beau- 
tiful things. So helpful was her instruction 
to country school teachers that one editor said 
that Miss Sanford ou,ght to be the president 
of a normal school, and that she would never 
find her right place until she became a teacher 
of teachers. She was as much interested in 
her fellow teachers, and especially in the 
younger ones, as she was in her pupils. She 
used to tell them that there was so much to do 
in the world that every one in it ought to work 
with all his might. She constantly warned 
them to keep their health and to keep on the 
alert for opportunity. She urged them to 
keep ever in mind the thought : * * No one but 
6 



82 MARIA SANFORD 

myself can do my work/' Another thought 
she was fond of presenting as long as she lived 
was that they wonld always have trouble. 
The world would knock them down sometimes, 
but they must jump up with clenched fists and 
go at their work anew. One of her many mot- 
toes for her own guidance at this time was, 
**Do something steadily. Forty years study- 
ing birds." 

The effect of the mottoes Miss Sanford had 
for herself and for others all her life might 
seem to be very small. But there is ample 
evidence from old students that they had per- 
manence. One woman writes fifty years after 
Miss Sanford taught in Chester County, *^I 
did not have the good fortune to be one of her 
pupils, but one of the bright spots in my mem- 
ory is a half day our school spent with hers as 
visitors. One of the things that impressed 
me that day was a passage of Scripture she 
had written along the top of a blackboard in 
the front of her room: *Buy the truth and 
sell it not; also wisdom, instruction and un- 
derstanding.' Before dismissing for the day 
she had the children rise and read the above 
in concert. Before I left the schoolroom that 
motto was mine for a lifetime, and I naturally 



MAEIA SANFORD 83 

always associated the words with Miss San- 
ford/' 

In the short time she had been in Pennsyl- 
vania, she had become so attached to the com- 
munity that in later years she wrote to a 
friend in West Chester, ** Those years in Ches- 
ter County were among the most valuable of 
my whole life, and endeared me so much to the 
people that I feel that I have almost the inter- 
est and claim of a mother in all that concerns 
that glorious country/' 

One of the many visitors to Miss Sanford's 
school was a member of the board of the new 
Quaker College at Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. 
He felt that such a teacher would be a great 
help in the college ; and when the professor of 
history at Swarthmore broke down in health, 
Miss Sanford was engaged as an instructor 
there. She entered the college in 1869, as 
teacher of English and History and the next 
year was made professor of history, the first 
woman professor in the United States. 

When she went to Swarthmore, the mother 
and brother removed to Philadelphia, and Miss 
Sanford maintained the home there, always 
going in from Swarthmore over week ends. The 
mother, always frail, died of pneumonia in 
1874. Maria adored her lovely mother, but she 



84 MARIA SANFORD 

had learned from the mother's bravery at the 
death of the father not to give way to over- 
whelming grief. Her idolized brother then re- 
mained her chief interest. When he married a 
year later, Miss Sanford concentrated her at- 
tention on an orphaned niece who had come 
under her care when she first went to Swarth- 
more, and who remained with her at Swarth- 
more until she was graduated in 1880. The 
following letter tells how she came to have the 
little girl with her : 

* ' My dear Aunt : 

I write to you in tears and wish to tell you 
that I have told a lie and would not own it to 
Aunty. I have the dreadful fault and have told 
a great many. Aunty sent me away this morn- 
ing because I would not own it, and came up 
this noon, but I told another ( !) She told me she 
should send me away if I did not choose to stay 
and obey her wishes. 

**She bid me farewell this noon and said I 
could see her no more, that she should write 
to Uncle to come out and take me ; and I write 
to you to see if you will take me. I will do my 
best to obey your wishes if you will only let me 
come. But I don't want you to take me if you 
think I shall trouble you a great deal. I am 



MARIA SANFORD 85 

going to strive hard to break up this dreadful 
fault/' 

It was doubtless when Miss Sanford was 
helping the little girl to break up this dreadful 
fault that she sometimes kept her niece shut 
into her room for a day at a time, and gave the 
other girls in the school the idea that she was 
too strict with her relative. The girl students 
used to throw offerings into the room through 
the transom above the door, and visit with the 
little prisoner by the same means. The niece 
lived with her in the intimate association of 
mother and daughter. 

A passage from a letter written by the niece 
gives a glimpse of their life : *^ At Swarthmore 
she had her study in the main or central part 
of the building. The long girls' dormitory, 
where she and I shared our sleeping room was 
near, and at the opposite end of the building 
was the boys' dormitory. One night I was 
wakened by hearing her jump out of bed hast- 
ily, and when I asked her what was the matter, 
she said, * Listen.' I at once heard a dull noise; 
and she, becoming satisfied that some disorder 
was astir in the boys' region, quickly slipped 
on slippers and wrapper and got over to the 
scene of conflict at once. The boys had tied up 
the door of the three or four men in charge of 



86 MARIA SANFORD 

their dormitory, and were having a riotous pil- 
low fight, not expecting the noise would carry 
to the other end of the building. So she caught 
them red handed and white-robed, escorted 
them to the various doors they had tied up, and 
had them release their prisoners. There were 
no more pillow fights after that. ' ' 

A letter reveals her power over her Swarth- 
more students: *^When, as a Freshman, I sat 
in a somewhat bare and dreary classroom, its 
air carrying that faint odor of chalk and black- 
boards — which I had learned thoroughly to de- 
spise — the door opened and there swept in a 
presence, a power, a force which might have 
been called violent excepting for its control 
and direction — in the shape and person of 
Maria Sanford. 

**I, and every student in the room, became 
instantly and vividly alert and expectant. The 
following hour seemed incredibly short. Miss 
Sanford opened a new and wonderful field to 
eyes eager to see, but till then blind. 

**To me, history had been a matter of mne- 
monics; dates — learned only for examination 
and as quickly forgotten ; names — dead, dry and 
lifeless; events having no bearing upon the 
present — all assembled in book form with the 
main purpose of robbing youth of its joy. 



MARIA SANFORD 87 

*'Biit the names became living, moving, act- 
ing men; the dates — points of departure; the 
incidents as real as thongh I were seeing them — 
all with a bearing on the life abont me. 

^^This was my first impression of Maria San- 
ford. Her name brings before me her clear 
eyes, her broad forehead, her quick and force- 
ful movements, her voice ringing with enthu- 
siasm, and best of all — her spiritual and intel- 
lectual force, which has so largely and helpfully 
influenced the lives of the thousands who were 
privileged to know her. ' ' 

Miss Sanford never wasted a moment. She 
made announcements to her class as she walked 
to the platform. They never knew when a test 
Avas coming. When she gave one she called 
*^ Pencils and paper" as she opened the door, 
and began her questions at once. The papers 
were passed from pupil to pupil for correction. 
In the freshman class she used to have a test 
like a spelling lesson in which the pupils stood. 
She gave a date; the pupil told what historical 
fact occurred on that date. If he failed, the 
first one who gave it correctly stepped above 
him. She used to assign epochs in history on 
which pupils were expected to do outside read- 
ing and prepare special papers. She also used 
to assign a certain number of pages of history 



88 MAEIA SANFORD 

to be condensed into a four minute recitation. 
Besides this each pupil was required to write 
several formal papers each term. In her zeal 
she was often in danger of encroaching upon 
the time due other departments. Pupils would 
work over time for her. 

^*One of the features of the school at Swarth- 
more was an evening study period of one and 
a quarter hours of undisturbed quiet study in 
a large hall where all except Juniors and Sen- 
iors assembled. President Magill and Miss 
Sanford were the only ones of the faculty who 
could maintain the required discipline, and so 
few of the faculty ever attempted to take charge 
of study hour. There were large doors from 
the back of the room opening into the hall ; and 
Miss Sanford usually staid in the hall or per- 
haps went into her study. She almost never 
staid in the room to watch them, but the effect 
of her presence kept the pupils in perfect order 
in the study hour. She had especial patience 
with students who were backward and had not 
had so many advantages as the average, and 
would do double work with them to enable them 
to rank with their more fortunate companions. 

'* She was greatly beloved not only by the stu- 
dents and teachers, but even by the domestics 
of the school. At Christmas time it was her 



MARIA SANFORD 89 

habit to go to the housekeeper who had charge 
of the many negro servants, and ask her who 
among them were not well known or popular, 
and who would be liable to be neglected at 
Christmas time. She always got for them a gay 
bandanna turban or some other gift dear to the 
darkey heart, that there might be none among 
them forgotten." 

In appearance at this time she was notice- 
able. Her hair, cut short, was already turning 
gray. She always wore plain black gowns, with 
long sleeves and high necked collar edged with 
immaculate white. Her costume was always 
the same, always exquisitely neat, made of the 
very best materials, loosely fitted, simply but- 
toned, with full skirts ; it allowed for the fullest 
possible action, and was noticeably unbecom- 
ing. Her rapid, long-limbed stride took no ac- 
count of clothing and always left all her habili- 
ments floating behind her in the wind of her 
progress, as one student remarked, *4ike the 
draperies of the Victory of Samothrace. ' ' Al- 
though Swarthmore is a Quaker college, and the 
people were accustomed to plain dress, even 
Miss Sanford's warmest admirers bemoaned 
the fact that she would not dress more becom- 
ingly. Two men fifty years later spoke of the 
ugly congress gaiters she wore. She never 



90 MAEIA SANFORD 

changed her style of dress as long as she taught. 
The severity and simplicity saved both time, 
thought and money, that she believed she could 
use to better advantage in other ways. But she 
was heard to say after she was eighty years of 
age that if she had her life to live over again 
she should do differently about dress. With- 
out doubt she might have smoothed some rough 
paths for herself if when she was younger 
she had dressed more nearly in the accepted 
fashion. 

A student describes her at that time as tall, 
slender, stately, spiritual, with mobile features 
which lightened and darkened according to the 
emotions within, filled with enthusiasm for her 
subject ; the upturned faces of her students fol- 
lowing her every gesture as she traced some 
historic event upon a map or outline upon the 
board. She never prepared any written lectures 
in undergraduate work, but depended on sup- 
plementing the classroom work with brief ex- 
temporaneous talks in further illustration of 
the subject. She was accustomed to making fre- 
quent and apt quotations from her wide ac- 
quaintance with poetry, and thus made history 
an introduction to good literature. From rapid 
fire drill in Eoman History with the freshmen 
to informal talks and discussions with wide col- 



MARIA SANFOED 91 

lateral reading of the advanced classes, there 
was never a dull moment anywhere. Student 
after student testifies to an enduring love of his- 
tory aroused in her classes at Swarthmore. 
Henry of Navarre, Louis XI, and others lived 
again for those boys and girls. Yet they used 
to think they were very clever when they got 
Miss Sanford to give the recitation hour to de- 
scriptive narrative or to poetry connected with 
the time. They knew later that they did not 
deceive her, but that she was choosing to give 
these things when she saw the time and the 
interest right for them. 

In addition to her work in history she con- 
ducted one class in the elements of political 
economy, based on John Stuart Mill as a text, 
and she had charge of all the public speaking 
in the college. In those days every teacher had 
a heavy program; Miss Sanford in addition to 
her teaching addressed teachers' institutes in 
the adjacent counties, gave courses of lectures 
on history and political economy in summer 
schools, and eventually was called upon to lec- 
ture in Ohio, Indiana, and Maryland. Before 
she left Swarthmore she was giving illustrated 
lectures on the art of European countries, a nat- 
ural outgrowth from her work in history. 

The trait, however, for which she was held in 



92 MARIA SANFOED 

fondest remembrance was the deep, personal 
interest she took in the moral welfare of some 
of the young men inclined to be wayward. She 
placed character rather than scholarship first, 
and had an especial fondness for boys who 
were bright and at the same time bad. She used 
to say ** There are plenty of people to love God^s 
children, so I look after the devil's. '' One boy 
who was expelled from college she took to her 
home and kept for a time. After she went to 
Minnesota his parents sent him to her when he 
again got beyond their control. 

At one time there were a number of trouble- 
some boys in the school. They broke all the 
rules (one hundred of them which the presi- 
dent had posted) and the authorities regarded 
them as very wild and intemperate. Most of the 
faculty wished to expel them, but Miss Sanford 
pleaded for them. She took them under her 
especial care and gained their confidence, u.ntil 
they would confess their wrongdoing freely to 
her. She finally succeeded in getting them to 
reform their habits and they all kept on at 
school. 

Sunday afternoon was a great day for those 
she chose to take to walk with her. The coun- 
try was comparatively wild then, and the 
woods were very enticing. She used to lead 



MARIA SANFORD 93 

her little band through them, and then com- 
ing to some nice spot to rest she would tell 
them stories and recite poems. She seemed 
to have an intuition of what they were going 
to need in life. Then there were her books at 
their service. Few could know how much it 
meant to them. It was not a matter of instruc- 
tion alone between her and her pupils; every- 
thing she had was at their disposal. She gave 
out of her life and her heart, and it was no 
wonder she had such power over refractory 
boys. 

More and more time as the years went on 
Miss Sanford spent at teachers' institutes. In 
1873 she was the only woman speaker at the 
state association, and in fact for many years 
was the only woman to lecture. Even as late 
as 1878 the institute circulars contained the 
statement that **Lady teachers are expected 
to prepare essays to be read at the day and 
evening sessions. '^ But ^^Miss Sanford of 
Swarthmore will be present the entire ses- 
sion" was a drawing card; and she was the 
only woman named. In 1876 she opened at 
Beaumont a course of six lectures by different 
speakers. Her subject was Honesty in Pub- 
lic and Private Life. Single tickets were ten 
cents; course tickets fifty cents. Her lifelong 



94 MARIA SANFORD 

custom was to charge comparatively little for 
her lectures. From lecturiu^g on primary 
teaching, geography, history, neatness and 
order, reading, composition, school discipline, 
she added to her subjects Luther and the 
Reformation, and The Labor Question. The 
Winter holiday seasons were utilized, insti- 
tutes being held at those seasons; and Miss 
Sanford finally sent out notices that she could 
give three days a week to such work. A course 
of fifteen public lectures in history was finally 
arranged, beginining with a general survey; 
then with several lectures each on Greece, 
Egypt, Carthage, Rome, Venice, France, Eng- 
land. The course began in June, one lecture 
a week at first. Later the lectures occurred 
oftener for the convenience of her audiences. 
This course made the transition to the art lec- 
tures of later years both natural and easy. 
In fact the lectures with slides, an unsual 
accompaniment in these days, began at this 
time. 

The Pennsylvania School Journal of Sep- 
tember 1878 had the following significant re- 
marks about one of the lectures: *'The Labor 
Question was presented by Miss Maria L. San- 
ford, Professor of History at Swarthmore 
College in Delaware County. This was one 



MARIA SANFORD 95 

of the ablest papers of the session, and we 
heartily commend it to the reader. The sub- 
ject was discussed from a high standpoint, 
which affords the advanta^ge of a broad view 
to the unprejudiced student of history. Miss 
Sanford's studies have eminently fitted her to 
treat this subject from such a point of view, 
as perhaps no other member of the association 
is equally at home with herself in the wide field 
of historical literature. 

** *The trouble of our times,' she holds, *is 
not accidental, but part of the long struggle of 
centuries, a phase of that great strife between 
the privileged class and the multitude, between 
manhood and caste, which constitutes three- 
fourths of the whole history of the civilized 
nations. ' She preaches the gospel of labor in 
no hollow-sounding phrase, and, what is bet- 
ter, practices what she preaches, for in the 
circle of our acquaintance we know no one 
who is a more enthusiastic, more tireless, or 
more effective worker. ' ' 

The quotation from the lecture has a very 
modern sound, and the remark about Miss San- 
ford was one that was very often on the lips 
of her admirers and friends. It was largely 
because she did practice what she preached 
that her words carried conviction. A man 



96 MARIA SANFORD 

from Poughkeepsie, N. Y., wrote to her in a 
letter in 1880 : * * I feel that yonr lectures are 
among the best of those on our platform. I 
believe in soul power and earnestness.'' He 
is writing to tell her that a New York friend of 
his wants her name in his lecture bureau, 
where he has the names of Colonel Homer B. 
Sprague, Wendell Phillips, and Mrs. Mary A. 
Livermore. As this was just at the time Miss 
Sanford went to Minnesota, she probably never 
gave her name to the bureau. 

It would be neither right nor best to omit 
the account of the struggles and hardships 
which finally resulted in sending Miss Sanford 
to a larger field of work. If she had been an 
ordinary person the hardships of her life would 
have broken her in her youth. In her case the 
result of the smelting process was pure gold. 
As has recently been said of a great states- 
man, there are natures which require austere 
living always in order to bring out the best in 
them. The statesman's fall from power was 
credited to the fact that the austerity of his 
early life was replaced later by luxurious liv- 
ing. Maria Sanford not only never lived lux- 
uriously, but she had many and fiery trials 
which came at times near to breaking her won- 
derful spirit. Three different factors entered 



MAEIA SANFORD 97 

into the final determination to resign her posi- 
tion at Swarthmore. 

Although Miss Sanford was the first woman 
professor and for some years the only one, 
there were other women teaching at Swarth- 
more. One of these disliked Miss Sanford. 
A strong woman herself, devoted to the inter- 
ests of Swarthmore, she became little short of 
a persecutor, and she made no secret of her 
enmity. Miss Sanford was never known to 
speak harshly of her, but it was partly due to 
the unhappiness she caused her that Miss San- 
ford wished to leave the college. Another 
woman among other things felt that Miss San- 
ford was neglecting her classes by givin,g so 
much time to lecturing and teaching in insti- 
tutes. Related to some members of the board 
of trustees, she imbued them with her ideas; 
so that the very thing which today is one of 
the greatest factors in favor of a college pro- 
fessor, was at that time considered a disad- 
vantage. In this as in so many other things 
Maria Sanford was a pioneer. It was years 
before it was considered a mark of distinction 
for a college professor to leave his classes in 
order to deliver public lectures. The trouble 
caused by Miss Sanford 's lectures induced the 
president to write in regard to the matter: 

7 



98 MAEIA SANFORD 

*'By one of those strange perversities in the 
affairs of this world, the very person who has 
done the most for our discipline here, whose 
moral influence is the greatest and best, has 
been the victim of a most unprovoked attack, 
but fortunately at the very point where she is 
strongest. She only needs time and a full 
knowledge of the facts and motives from the be- 
ginning, on the part of all, not only to defend 
herself, but to make all concerned marvel that 
any combination of circumstances could have 
existed which could make it necessary to enter 
upon a defense/' 

Maria Sanford was born to lecture as well 
as to teach, and it never occurred to her to 
give up lecturing in order to please some of 
the college authorities. She knew that she 
was doing much good, and she believed then 
as most people do now, that a college professor 
was not necessarily neglecting classes because 
he was giving public lectures. In 1878 her 
salary was cut for a year from two thousand 
dollars to fifteen hundred. Although it was 
not stated that this was because of dissatis- 
faction with her lecturing, it was easily in- 
ferred that such was the case. 

The President wrote to a number of the col- 
lege trustees that under the circumstances he 



MARIA SANFORD 99 

could not ask Miss Sanford, as he had expected 
to do, to take more work. She at once made 
application for a position elsewhere. The 
President, in writing to the president of an- 
other college on her behalf, averred that she 
was the best teacher he had met in his experi- 
ence of twenty-five years. But she remained 
some years more at Swarthmore. The next 
year in a letter to a friend of his who had 
charge of a school the President wrote that 
Maria Sanford wished to give a course of six 
lectures to her school. He continues, **I want 
thee to know her better — I consider her indi- 
rect influence over the students here as even 
of greater value to Swarthmore than her in- 
struction in history, highly as I esteem her as 
an instructor in that department. 

'^Our chief lack is the loss of the time of 
Miss Sanford for three days of each week, 
making it necessary to sacrifice the history in 
our large classes A and B and the instruction 
in Political Economy in the junior class. If 
this were remedied I could not ask to have the 
college in better condition." 

The three days a week for institute work and 
lecturing were doubtless granted because of 
the five hundred dollar cut in salary. The 
president makes his attitude^m regard to the 



100 MAEIA SANFORD 

matter clear to her in a letter in which he says : 
**Thon hast enough extra work, I am sure, to 
afford to lose a few classes once in a great 
while, and no one shall censure thee for that." 

In appreciation of her lectures a friend in 
Baltimore, Maryland, wrote: **At a meeting 
of Friends they resolved to adjourn their 
meetin,g over next week in order to have op- 
portunity to enjoy thy lecture. They never 
did that before to hear any lecturer. It really 
was for thee that all those Friends entered 
into the above arrangement." 

A letter written by a member of the firm of 
Houghton, Mifflin & Company, Publishers, of 
Boston, in 1905, shows the effect of her teach- 
ing on one student: 

*^My dear and beloved Professor : 

Recently you have been brought to my mind 
by a rather striking coincidence. I was re- 
ceiving a call from an intimate friend, and we 
were comparing notes on teachers who had 
most influenced our lives and thoughts. I said 
that one who influenced me strongly was a pro- 
fessor of Ancient History who was so inter- 
esting and enthusiastic that even the driest 
parts of the subject became interesting. Mrs. 
C. said that reminded her of a professor who 



MARIA SANFORD 101 

taught English Literature at the University 
of Minnesota, and I asked could it by any pos- 
sibility be Professor Sanford and wonderful 
to relate, it was. I have a picture in my mind 
of you as you used to sweep into the lecture 
hall brimming over with enthusiasm so that 
everyone in the class felt lifted up and carried 
off to the heights of Ol^onpus. The leaven 
you implanted has caused me to read exten- 
sively in Mediaeval and Modern History, and 
Social and Economic History." 

Another written by a woman in Somerville, 
Mass., in 1913, has this passage: *^One of my 
dearest pictures on memory's wall is of you in 
your alcove room and your smile of welcome 
when I came to call upon you. If I were asked 
for the names of those who had most influenced 
me, yours would lead all the rest, for your 
teaching gave me a love for history which has 
never left me." 

Letters from the president of Swarthmore to 
Miss Sanford the year after she went to Min- 
nesota show that he felt the loss of her influ- 
ence over the students. ^^The place that thou 
held is not likely to be so filled in this genera- 
tion. We sadly miss the zeal and enthusiasm 
which thou never failed to inspire in thy classes, 



102 MAEIA SANFORD 

and in my time I never hope to see it rekindled 
to the same extent. Need I tell thee how much 
I miss thy influence upon all the students, and 
especially upon the children of the preparatory 
school. Few are gifted with the power to con- 
trol so effectually and withal so cheerfully as 
thou art, and thy inspiring influence upon 
classes I sadly miss. I had a recent conversa- 
tion with a teacher who had trouble with cer- 
tain students, and I advised her to go into the 
classroom always in a kindly frame of mind 
toward them if possible, and try the effect. She 
reported to me that she observed a complete 
change in these students. Besides many other 
valuable things I learned this principle of gov- 
ernment especially from thee/^ 

Another factor which few people knew any- 
thing about caused Miss Sanf ord heartache and 
despair. In a letter to an intimate friend writ- 
ten in 1875 is this significant passage : 

**With me as the years go by, I feel that I am 
losing hope. I feel less strong, less confident, 
less sure of what I am, of what I can do, of the 
good in what I have done, and even in what I 
have hoped for. This seems to me the saddest 
of all the losses which the years have brought. 
Mrs. Browning has expressed this beautifully 
in these lines from The Lost Bower : 



MAEIA SANFORD 103 

I have lost the dream of Doing, 
And the other dream of Done. 

But in spite of all these things I hold that we 
may and should be glad and rejoice ; if we have 
done earnest, faithful work, we have a right to 
triumph, to rejoice over our success.'' 

Miss Sanford was at this time thirty-eight 
years old. She was now to undergo the most 
tragic of all her experiences at Swarthmore, 
and the one which must have been finally the 
deciding factor in her resignation. Soon after 
the letter just quoted above, she experienced a 
memorable event which colored all her later 
life. September 24, 1875, was ever after to her 
and one other member of the faculty of Swarth- 
more a day to be referred to again and again as 
a wonderful day. She loved and was loved by 
a colleague with whom marriage was impossi- 
ble. Even to a woman of Miss Sanford 's lofty 
soul and iron courage the five remaining years 
at Swarthmore must have been little short of 
torture. During these years she disciplined 
herself constantly by writing mottoes and 
* * thoughts ' ' for her guidance. As they are the 
chief means by which she revealed the inner 
working of her nature some of them are quoted. 
Miss Sanford was not a voluminous letter 



104 MARIA SANFORD 

writer, seldom writing except upon business 
matters. One motto which she gave to the man 
she loved he referred to twenty-five years later. 
*^The cabalistic * After suffering, glory' brought 
a new peace to my mind. ' ' And at a later time, 
<<Thy motto is often before me in dark and 
cheerless days, * After suffering, glory!' " 

That Miss Sanford's great soul was stirred 
to its depths is shown in the poignant memoran- 
dum she made out for her guidance at the begin- 
ning of the year 1876 : * * I thank thee, oh my 
God, for light. *Till death us part' it shall be 
true. I can work for him, seek his happiness, 
live for him; and receive no sign. Shall I not 
then be his good angel ? That will not be cold- 
ness, but the fullness of unselfish love. God 
help me! My heart shall not grow cold for I 
will keep it warm with sympathy and love for 
others. I will throw my whole soul into my pro- 
fession. Oh it is hard but it is the rugged path 
that leads upward always." 

The next day there was merely this sentence : 
**The book is sealed." 

A few months later appeared the following: 
**To be read daily three times. To myself. 
Goodness and truth and purity never fail to win 
love and esteem. The utmost kindness that a 
sister could give." 



MAEIA SANFORD 105 

Students and friends knew at times that Miss 
Sanford was suffering, but none knew all the 
causes of her trouble. Girls who roomed near 
her heard her walking and talking to herself in 
her room at night, and knew that their beloved 
professor was greatly distressed. Older friends 
saw her suffering in her face. But for some 
years she struggled on, finding strength in strik- 
ing out for herself the ^ thoughts" which kept 
her on her upward path. Some of these clearly 
have reference to the enemy who had caused her 
such unhappiness: ^^ Success depends on pa- 
tience. The patient are those who have learned 
to suffer ; who have learned to fall and rise again. 
What matter if others triumph outwardly? 
Unless they can lead us also to give way to 
jealousy and hatred they have not really tri- 
umphed. But if we seek to retaliate then we 
place ourselves on their level and are indeed 
conquered. Keep to the upper path ! Make your 
success consist in the growth and beauty of 
your own soul ; then there can be no humiliation 
from others. What they would make such but 
strengthens your virtue through the effort to 
resist the temptation to hatred and revenge." 

**My citadel is my character, and this they 
cannot reach unless they can tempt me to envy 
and hatred. I will not stoop to this." 



106 MARIA SANFORD 

**Let others wear their laurels undisturbed; 
Aviii yours in a field their petty souls cannot 
enter. Be what they would seem, and the calm 
dignity of real wealth shall be yours.'' 

^^It makes no difference what others have 
that I have not. I am happy in the abundance 
that I have, and in the privilege of contributing 
to the happiness of others.'' 

^^We should be ever seeking to groiv in the 
direction of all good." 

*^It is a glorious thing to be the friend of 
the unfortunate." 

^ ' Put all your soul into your work. ' ' 

** There come to us sometimes visions of duty 
from which we shrink ; we can do much, but not 
this; we cannot nerve ourselves to take *The 
last hard footsteps of that iron crag' which we 
have climbed with weary feet. But if we tri- 
umph in this, rise above our weakness and fol- 
low the clear vision though all our selfishness 
would drag us down, we shall indeed find * After 
suffering, glory'." 

She gathered strength at this time from one 
of the type of books which she had resolved as a 
young girl never to waste time in reading. Some 
quotations from an anonymous novel published 
in 1864 under the title of Annie and Her Mas- 
ter evidently related experiences similar in some 



MARIA SANFORD 107 

respects to her own. **I have done the work 
I felt called on to do in the way that it was 
truest to myself to do it; with the rest I have 
no concern/' 

^*The words were nothing; the tone of such 
deep and strong tenderness was everything. Is 
it unbeautiful that an unreasoning fidelity of al- 
legiance should endow with something of the 
dearness of the man who so loves her, all things 
that are or have been his ? He does not love with 
the self-seeking passion some men call love, but 
with a love, the strongest desire of which is the 
good and happiness of what he loves.'' 

The strain after some years told too much on 
Miss Sanford, until in 1879 she resigned at the 
close of the college year, without knowing what 
she was going to do next. Something of what 
this step cost her is recorded in a note she wrote 
soon afterward: **My resignation was the 
fierce grasp of one drowning after something 
stable, the attempt for mastery of one whose 
brain was reeling. But that awful struggle was 
the crisis, and it brought me peace. There are 
still moments when I give way, but calm reason 
is sure to triumph. ' ' 

Some years later a woman wrote to a friend 
about Miss Sanford: **It sometimes seems to 
me that some people are sacrificed at Swarth- 



108 MAEIA SANFORD 

more. There was great power in Miss Sanford. 
And liow she worked and fought for others! 
I know a time when she suffered tortures at 
Swarthmore; I could see it in every feature. 
For her to leave there heart-broken as she was, 
and then rally all her forces and achieve the 
success that she has since achieved shows a 
power which very few women possess. I feel 
deep interest in her welfare, and believe that 
under some circumstances she might have re- 
mained forever at Swarthmore. ' ' 

And that she achieved what she set herself to 
do in regard to the man who loved her is testi- 
fied to in a sentence from a letter some years 
after she left Swarthmore : * ^ Thy blessed influ- 
ence, when around and ever near me in those 
memorable years that are gone, did more than 
aught else in those days to make and keep me 
worthy. ' ' 

For twenty years after Maria Sanford went 
to the University of Minnesota this friendship 
was kept up through correspondence. Her ad- 
vice was asked about the careers of his chil- 
dren ; her sympathy for the death of a member 
of his family. And when it became possible, 
after Miss Sanford was past sixty years of age, 
he pleaded with her to become his wife. But 
Miss Sanford, although she never told her rea- 
sons for refusing, doubtless felt that she must 



MARIA SANFOED 109 

not burden any one else with the great debt she 
had set herself, in the eighties, to pay to the 
uttermost farthing. The debt had been con- 
tracted after she had been some years in Min- 
nesota; and the paying of the money occupied 
her until she was eighty years of age. 

It was a tremendous thing to decide to leave 
Swarthmore after ten years of work there. 
Miss Sanford was forty-three years of age, an 
age when many women hesitate to make a 
change from a certainty to an uncertainty; an 
age which at that time was called a dead-line 
for teachers. Her emotions were wrought to a 
high pitch of intensity. While she hesitated in 
doubt she had an experience which she regarded 
as an omen, and which decided her to go. She 
was so unused to such experiences that this one 
always remained clear in her mind. She had a 
dream in which she was standing at one end of 
a long, curving bridge whose further end was 
lost in mist. While she stood there wondering 
if she should cross into the unknown, her mother 
appeared at the other end and beckoned her 
across. She regarded the vision as intended for 
her guidance, and thereafter had no doubt of 
what she was to do. She told a friend late in life 
that it was the only experience of the kind she 
had ever had. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE MINNESOTA PIONEER 

In 1879 Miss Sanford left Swarthmore for 
a year, and busied herself lecturing. The 
following summer when President Folwell of 
the University of Minnesota went east to 
secure additional members for the faculty of 
the rapidly growing young western institu- 
tion, he met at Chautauqua among others 
Maria Sanford, and after half an hour's talk 
decided that he wanted her on his faculty. He 
had seen her work at Swarthmore when he, 
visited a friend on the faculty who took him to 
the classroom of the enthusiastic professor of 
history. In later years, long after his own 
and Miss Sanford 's retirement, he expressed 
himself as proud of having '* discovered'' Miss 
Sanford for the University of Minnesota. 

In 1880, the trip from Pennsylvania to Min- 
nesota to one who had never been farther west 
than the Middle Atlantic states, was like go- 
ing into the wilderness, but Miss Sanford was 
of adventuring spirit, and to her the new land 

110 



MARIA SANFORD 111 

seemed full of promise. She brought with 
her a young niece who had been attending 
Swarthmore college. For the first year they 
boarded, and the niece became a student at the 
University. At that time the entire academic 
college was housed in one buildin^g, known to 
students of later years as the ''Old Main.'' 
There was a faculty of eighteen. Miss San- 
ford, made assistant professor of rhetoric and 
elocution that first year, was the only woman 
of that rank in the faculty. The first year 
there were only seventeen graduates in the 
three colleges of the University. The second 
year Miss Sanford was made a full professor 
of rhetoric and elocution. The college was 
growing but still had a sub-freshman class. 
There were about three hundred students, one- 
tenth of them in the Senior class. Miss San- 
ford entered upon her duties with such energy 
and enthusiasm that her classes were very 
large. She gave instruction in composition, 
in rhetoric, in elocution and oratory to sub- 
freshmen, freshmen, sophomores, juniors and 
seniors. The two upper classes were required 
to write two essays a term, or to recite one 
oral carefully prepared. This requirement 
Miss Sanford in her zeal increased, until it 
called forth from the President of the Univer- 



112 MARIA SANFOED 

sity some years later a letter in which he said, 
*^ Complaint is made by the students of the 
Junior class, and by members of the faculty 
who instruct the Junior class, that the work 
required in the rhetorical department is in ex- 
cess of what is stipulated or designated in the 
catalogue, — that instead of two essays a term, 
the students are required to write one a week, 
and that in consequence they are too much 
burdened. I called to see you, but you were 
not in. I, therefore, lay the matter before 
you.'' To students at the University of Min- 
nesota at the present time those requirements 
would seem very small, as for more than a 
decade freshman students have been required 
to write at least two themes a week. This de- 
tail is of interest because there were students 
as well as members of the faculty during Miss 
Sanford's three decades of teaching who 
thought that she gave too little work to her 
classes. She was perhaps influenced by being 
criticised so early in her course for the oppo- 
site reason. 

Here as always Miss Sanford never spared 
herself. She gave her time, her interest and 
her encouragement from early morning until 
late at night, wherever or whenever students 
needed her. She frequently drilled students 




MARIA SANFORD 
The Minnesota Pioneer 



MARIA SANFORD 113 

at four o'clock in the morning for oratorical 
contests. One District Court Judge in Minne- 
sota, who was one of her early students, recalls 
her work with him. He says, **She was not 
only my instructor in a very large per cent, of 
work during my years of school, but in addi- 
tion we were very close personal friends. She 
did me many favors totally disconnected with 
school work, which materially shaped my fu- 
ture activities. When she first came to the 
University, I was in the freshman year. Miss 
Sanford was splendidly equipped for the long 
period of exacting work upon which she at that 
time entered. She seemed never to tire. She 
was continually alert mentally and physically. 
Her cheerfulness never failed. Her patience 
seemed never exhausted. She had a keen sense 
of humor, which frequently tided over difficult 
situations. I never knew her to use an unkind 
or discouraging word to a student.'' 

Another student of those early days, a 
former mayor of Minneapolis, says of her: 
*^ Students in the University in those days 
were constantly quoting Miss Sanford. Her 
methods of teaching were unique and original 
and she obtained a good amount of work from 
her students because they liked to please her. 
She had great enthusiasm and deep sympathy 

8 



114 MARIA SANFOED 

for those who especially needed her guidance. 
In her classes there never was a dull moment. 
Who cannot remember those impassioned re- 
citals of those poems which appealed to her? 
I admit it was hard to keep tears from coming 
to my eyes, as they did to her own eyes, when 
she repeated The Angels of Buena Vista. I 
think Miss Sanford put more soul into her 
work than any other teacher I have known. 
There was always a spiritual and upliftin,g 
note in her work. She helped me in giving me 
special training in speaking. How often she 
asked me to come in her spare hour and re- 
hearse to, her over and over again some ora- 
tion I was to deliver. There was no limit to 
the amount of work she would do for an indi- 
vidual student. Years later when I had be- 
come deeply involved in a local political cam- 
paign in Minneapolis, I was obliged to do a 
great deal of public speaking. Miss Sanford 
watched my course with interest. One morn- 
ing she came to me to my office saying she had 
read the substance of an address which I had 
given the night before, which included liberal 
quotations. She remarked that she was sorry 
to find, if the report was true, a grammatical 
error which was unworthy of me and which 
she hoped I would not make again. She then 



MARIA SANFORD 115 

gave me some good advice about the use of my 
voice in large halls. Then, laughingly apolo- 
gizing for her gratuitous criticism, she went 
on her way, no doubt on some other errand of 
goodness and kindness." 

As it was uncommon in those days for a 
woman to drill young men in oratory, the meth- 
ods she used are of interest. She was no mean 
orator herself. Her voice was magnificently 
trained, and her methods were those of com- 
mon sense. She drilled her students to ex- 
press their thoughts adequately. She had no 
stiff method of elocution or gesture. If a stu- 
dent did not want to make gestures she never 
tried to make him do so, remarking often that 
many of the best speakers she had ever heard 
stood still on the platform, while some of the 
worst she ever knew about could saw the air 
more violently than Hamlet's players. 

Miss Sanford did not drill her students in 
elocution alone. Taking their essays and ora- 
tions she went through them laboriously and 
severely; never if she could help it did she ap- 
prove an oration which did not have something 
to say. Her wide acquaintance mth history 
and economics fitted her to guide and criticise 
in a masterful manner, whether a student 
wished to discuss Demosthenes or free trade. 



116 MARIA SANFORD 

In Miss Sanford's third year at the Univer- 
sity she added to her duties the work of the 
department of English, the head of which was 
taken sick and later died. She did the work 
so well that President Folwell publicly thanked 
her for the wonderful way in which she had 
handled it. The following year a new man 
was called to the head of that department, and 
Miss Sanford returned to her own work as 
Professor of Rhetoric and Elocution. 

Early in the ei^ghties , there came the first 
great crisis in the history of the young Uni- 
versity. There was considerable suspicion in 
the state that the Agricultural department was 
a colle,ge merely on paper, and was of little use 
to the farmers of the state in any material 
way. The state Legislature proposed to sepa- 
rate it from the University and make it an in- 
dependent institution. The President of the 
University, feeling that it would be a calamity to 
have the colleges separated, and believing that 
the Agricultural College met a real need, made 
before the Legislature a telling plea. Then with 
the aid of Mr. 0. C. Gregg he inaugurated a 
system of farmers ' institutes and asked some of 
the professors of the University to visit them 
and familiarize the farmers with the work of the 
college. Among these speakers was Miss San- 



MARIA SANFORD 117 

ford. She had already begun her work as a 
public speaker in Minnesota by teaching at the 
close of her first college year in the teachers' 
institute at Excelsior. Now she was asked to 
speak to the farmers' wives, while the men on 
the faculty spoke to the farmers themselves; 
and her talks, which were always homely and 
to the point, became so popular that the halls 
in which she spoke soon became too crowded. 
At one place, when she reached the town hall, 
she found the stairs and the entrance so 
crowded that she could not get into the room 
where she was to speak ; with a friend she went 
outside to a window above the platform on 
which she was to stand. A ladder was procured 
and Miss Sanford entered the room through 
the window, to the enthusiastic applause of all 
present. Her favorite talk on these occasions 
entitled How to Make Home Happy proceeded 
after this fashion: *' *But,' says this mother, 
on whose forehead the wrinkles are becoming 
deeply set, *If I were only rich and could have 
things comfortable, I'd be as good-natured as 
anybody ; but that old broken stove — and Josiah 
will leave the door open, and he knows it makes 
it smoke.' 

<<My good woman, did you ever think that 
those who have all these disagreeable things to 



118 MARIA SANFORD 

bear need all the more to have cheerful hearts ? 
Have you ever noticed how even a smoking 
stove will brighten up and puts its best foot 
foremost for a pretty, bright-faced, smiling 
woman! You used to be pretty, and you are 
not old. Suppose you try a few bright smiles 
and kind words on the old stove and on Josiah. 
As for this matter of riches, the bottom plank 
of my belief is 'money cannot make a happy 
home.' " 

During one of the institutes a railway strike 
occurred and interrupted the train service. For 
several days there were no trains of any kind. 
Miss Sanford had an engagement to lecture 
forty miles farther up the road. She was de- 
termined to keep that engagement, and said if 
no train came that day she would start the fol- 
lowing day on foot. No train came; and so, 
carrying a little cloth bag containing only her 
toilet articles, she started up the track on foot. 
Fortunately by noon a freight overtook her 
near a station, and she was allowed to ride in 
the caboose; but had it not come along she 
would have walked the entire forty miles. 

In 1889 enough information had been dissem- 
inated among the farmers of the state so that 
the Legislature passed a resolution ''That the 
unity of the several departments of the Uni- 



MARIA SANFORD 119 

versity shall always be preserved and that the 
Agricultural College shall be maintained as an 
important department. Resolved that we here- 
by convey the individual pledge of the members 
of this Legislature that the interests of the 
University shall be carefully guarded in the 
future." This resolution, engraved upon a 
large parchment, was framed and presented 
to the University. It was hung in a conspicu- 
ous place in a new building, Pillsbury Hall, pre- 
sented to the University by Governor Pillsbury 
in recognition of this action. Throughout this 
crisis Professor Sanford rendered valuable 
service. Many years later a former student 
wrote to Miss Sanford: **We remember a 
time when the University was not popular as it 
is now, when it was hard to get appropriations 
for it, but when one woman went about in ourl 
state and interested people in the institution 
through her own personality, and we shall not^ 
forget it." 

The outside work that Miss Sanford did made 
it necessary for her to have some of her class 
work at unusual hours. For many years she 
conducted a class called '^ Maria's sunrise 
class." The ordinary professor who had felt 
obliged to have a class at half-past seven o 'clock 
in the morning would probably have asked the 



120 MARIA SANFORD 

weak students to attend the class. That would 
have been in the nature of a punishment, and 
the class would have been a drag. But Miss 
Sanf ord was tactful enough to ask the very best 
students to her sunrise class ; it was felt to be a 
great honor to be selected as a member. One 
student, recalling her experience a quarter of a 
century later, said: **How clearly I remember 
the cold and shivering discomfort I underwent 
starting from my distant home before daylight 
for that early class! The other students as 
they assembled were equally uncomfortable. 
How as Miss Sanford came sailing into the 
room we forgot all about chilblains and frost- 
bite in her brightness and enthusiasm!'' 

At these early sessions no students enjoyed 
more than did the professor herself anything 
that brought a moment of relief to the routine. 
One morning when the members of the famous 
class were called on to give their daily quota- 
tions the first one repeated the first stanza of 
the poem Early Rising, by John G. Saxe. 

God bless the man who first invented sleep! 

So Sancho Panza said and so say I. 
And bless him also that he didn't keep 

His great discovery to himself; nor try 
To make it — as the lucky fellow might — 

A close monopoly by patent right ! 



MARIA SANFORD 121 

Miss Sanford's head went up, her eyes 
sparkled, and her face kindled into animation. 
When the next student went on with the second 
stanza, she manifested the keenest enjoyment: 

Yes, bless the man who first invented sleep 
(I really can't avoid the iteration.) 

But blast the man, with curses loud and deep, 

Whate'er the rascal's name, or age, or station, 

Who first invented, and went round advising 
That artificial cut-off, early rising! 

And when the eighth student finished the 
eighth and last stanza she was convulsed with 
mirth. 

Miss Sanford's class room in the Old Main 
building at first was a small dark room which 
the students considered very unpleasant; but 
perhaps no other room ever received so much 
of the professor 's affection. Long after it had 
been burned and another raised above its 
ashes, she recorded her memories of it: *^The 
Old Main was not a beautiful building archi- 
tecturally, though when from the other side of 
the river one caught a glimpse of its cupola ris- 
ing from the rich green foliage of oaks sur- 
rounding it, the view was by no means unat- 
tractive. ... I well remember the little 
room beyond the stairs where I for years met 
my classes, a room so hard to ventilate, I often 



122 MARIA SANFORD 

thought with my cranky love for fresh air, — 
so often over-ventilated, as the shivering stu- 
dents thought as they met there the freezing 
wind straight from the north pole. How viv- 
idly I recall the members of those early classes, 
so many of them the tried and trusted friends 
of today, and some, with their eager hopes and 
brief ambitions passed to the distant land. 
Those days spent in the little,. dark, cold class 
room were to me bright and beautiful years. 
Years of prosperity and increasing numbers 
of students and new buildings robbed the Old 
Main of its dignity as President's office, library, 
and chapel, and gave to me the more commodi- 
ous front room for my classes, but though the 
oaks were beautiful as seen from its windows, 
and the distant view of the river at sunset glori- 
ous, this room never had quite the charm of the 
dingy little room beyond the stairs. They had 
delightful associations which could not be trans- 
ferred." 

Miss Sanford wrote this years after the 
building had burned. She closed her somewhat 
pathetic memories with a characteristic note: 
*^I should not be true to all my memories if I 
did not record that when the fire finally took 
the Old Main, and I stood outside watching the 
destruction, not only of the building but of 



MARIA SANFOED 123 

books and pictures which were precious to me, 
I could not repress a feeling of satisfaction as 
I thought of the millions of cockroaches being 
consumed in that holocaust. ' ' 

The love of fresh air to which she referred in 
her writing of the Old Main was amusingly 
illustrated by an incident which occurred early 
in the eighties. During one winter's vacation, 
when the fires were allowed to run low, and her 
work did not. Miss Sanford secured permission 
to have a wood stove put in her study on the 
first floor of the Old Main. One afternoon fire 
was discovered. It had evidently started from 
a defective flue in Miss Sanford 's stove. Con- 
siderable damage was done by the fire, and more 
by the deluge of water that soaked every part 
of the building. A special meeting of the fac- 
ulty was called to consider how to care for 
classes during the period when repairs were 
being made. The boilers had been started with 
the idea of drying out the building; and the 
president's office, where the faculty meeting 
was being held, was as steamy as a Turkish 
bath. Finally she could stand it no longer and 
said, *^ President Northrop, is it not possible 
for us to have some fresh air in this room?" 
President Northrop replied, — **Yes, Miss San- 
ford, we might let you have another stove. ' ' 



124 MARIA SANFORD 

The second year of her work in Minneapolis 
Miss Sanford went into her own home, which 
she later bought, and in which she lived until 
a few years before her retirement. In spite of 
this she spent many of her working hours out- 
side the class in her office in the Old Main build- 
ing. There she retired on Sunday afternoons 
for quiet and reading. There she worked even- 
ings when she was not away lecturing. There 
she even, upon occasion, stayed all night and 
slept on a couch in her private office. The 
elderly night watchman would see a feeble light 
glimmering in the front windows of the Old 
Main and would feel it necessary to investigate 
for fear of fire. Time after time he found 
Miss Sanford working late at night ; and finally 
for her own safety, as well as for that of the 
building, she was asked not to spend the night 
in her office. She had the misfortune, however, 
after she had been in Minneapolis a few years, 
to fall on the ice and hurt her back in such a 
way that she could not leave her bed for a con- 
siderable time. The doctor, in fact, told her 
that she would never be able to walk again. 
Miss Sanford did not propose to accept any 
such decree. She ordered a dray and had her 
mattress taken to her office at the University, 
and herself transported to the same place and 



MARIA SANFORD 125 

there she stayed nights as well as days until she 
was able to go back and forth. She would get 
into the class room for her class work and then 
return to the office, where she would hold her 
conferences with her students. In this way she 
kept her work going in regular order. 

In spite of sickness, college work and public 
lectures, the professor gave her home more at- 
tention than do many people who have no out- 
side duties. The niece who had come with her 
to Minneapolis finished her college course, mar- 
ried, and went west. Another young niece fif- 
teen years of age then came to live with Miss 
Sanford and pursue her education. She first 
entered preparatory school, and later the Uni- 
versity. Miss Sanford 's house was commodious 
and she at once filled it with students, selecting 
for the most part young men and women who 
needed work in order to pay their own way 
through the University. She asked an older 
sister of the niece who was attending college 
to come west as her housekeeper. Each of the 
girls who lived with Miss Sanford was given 
some duty to perform to help pay for her 
board: one girl cleaned the lamps; another 
did the sweeping and dusting; another used 
to help with the washing. In this way the 
girls paid a large part of their expenses. Miss 



126 MAKIA SANFOKD 

Sanf ord charged the young men more for board 
than the women, because there was less that 
they could do about the house. The plan worked 
out satisfactorily as long as Miss Sanford lived 
in that home. It became so popular that she 
took a second house near-by in which some of 
the boys and girls slept. She was always insist- 
ent on the utmost cleanliness. The rooms were 
simply but well furnished, and were cheerful 
with white curtains. The lamps must be shiny, 
and the dust must be carefully removed. Her 
young niece who was intrusted with the dusting 
and with some of the sweeping, was not tidy as 
a girl, and when her aunt would look sharply 
into the corners and be displeased if she found 
dust the young girl would quake ; but she found 
a way after such an experience of reinstating 
herself in her aunt's good graces. She knew 
that Miss Sanford did not like to darn stock- 
ings. When a drawerful of them had accumu- 
lated the young girl would surreptitiously put 
them into immaculate order; and when Miss 
Sanford found the stockings neatly darned, the 
culprit breathed freely again. 

Miss Sanford went to bed early and arose at 
unearthly hours to work. Getting up at three 
o'clock and finishing before breakfast she did 
the washing for a family of sixteen with the 



MARIA SANFORD 127 

help of a young German girl who boarded there 
for a time. One morning two of the girls were 
frightened before daylight by hearing stealthy 
movements outside their window. After shak- 
ing in their beds for a time, one got up courage 
to creep near the window, expecting to see a 
burglar trying to enter, but found that it was 
merely Miss Sanford washing the window on 
the outside. 

Another incident she was fond of telling as a 
joke on herself. One night when she was in 
great pain she decided that she must go to the 
kitchen to heat some water for relief. As she 
sat by the stove waiting for the water to heat, 
she thought the kitchen needed some cleaning ; 
and so she took the water heated and scrubbed 
the walls. The next morning when she told 
the students, she laughingly said she forgot all 
about the pain, and when she got through scrub- 
bing was surprised to find she was entirely well. 

She worked outside her house as well as in- 
side. She sodded the lawn on her hands and 
knees ; she set out trees on the parking in front 
of her house as an encouragement to the neigh- 
bors on the street to do likewise; she piled 
wood in her back yard early in the morning. 
One of her colleagues passing by on the side- 
walk one day heard her cheerful voice singing. 



128 MARIA SANFOBD 

** Praise God, from whom all blessings flow," 
and just then a stick of wood, came flying over 
the fence almost in his face. One thing she 
could never master was the use of the scythe. 
She was always ,so busy that she hardly took 
time to eat. She frequently came rushing to 
the table after the others were seated, but she 
did not neglect the students at her board. She 
had, a habit of taking a book from which she 
read; and especially if there was something 
funny she would read it in order to add cheer- 
fulness to the meal. 

She thought the, students of those early days 
had too few diversions. There were no sorori- 
ties or fraternities then, and there was no or- 
ganized recreation in the University itself, and 
so she encouraged those of her household regu- 
larly and often to dance on the parlor floors of 
which she was so careful. She would have 
them roll up the rugs and set back the furniture 
and would watch and applaud a recreation in 
which she herself had never indulged. One 
time only did some of the students get Miss 
Sanf ord to enter somewhat into their fun. Her 
students had never seen her in anything but 
plain black ; but one evening some of the girls 
prevailed upon her to dress up in a beautiful 
gown of the Governor's wife. They arranged 



MARIA SANFORD 129 

Miss Sanford's hair in the prevaili]i,g style, 
and decorated it with a rose. She descended 
to the parlor, a perfect stranger to every one 
who saw her. Even her yonng niece failed to 
recognize her annt, and when the young men in 
the house learned that it was Miss Sanf ord they 
were so astonished that they asked her why she 
didn't always dress that way. Her own niece had 
never before realized that her aunt was beauti- 
ful. Miss Sanford was so pleased with their 
appreciation that she ordered a dress made by 
the same dressmaker but soon returned to her 
severe black, which she wore up to the time of 
her death. 

Although she wanted her household to have 
sufficient recreation, she felt great responsibil- 
ity for their moral welfare. One woman has 
never forgotten how bad she felt about disobey- 
ing Miss Sanford 's express wish that no one 
should leave the house late in the evening with- 
out her knowledge. This young girl went coast- 
ing one evening at ten o 'clock with some of the 
other students mthout telling the professor. 
That evening there was an accident, and in this 
way Miss Sanford learned of the escapade. She 
called the girls together and gave them a serious 
talk which left them thoroughly repentant. 

In addition to the students a little lame boy 

9 



130 MARIA SANFOED 

from the reform school came into the family to 
stay for awhile. She did so much for him that 
many years later, a middle aged man, he wrote 
to her from a neighboring city telling her how 
much he owed to her help and how he was try- 
ing to rear his OA^m boys in the way she had 
taught him. 

About this time she helped also a family of 
entire strangers who were friends of another 
professor at the University. The husband, a 
minister, had broken down in health, and his 
wife was planning to go with him to Colorado 
when her friend wrote to her to try Minnesota, 
and to go to Miss Sanford, one of the biggest 
hearted women living, who would be a mother 
to the family. Miss Sanford found a house for 
them, and helped the wife to find enough stu- 
dents to fill up her house, so that she could earn 
her living, and bring the children to the west. 
After the family was settled in the city Miss 
Sanford became a true neighbor. More than 
once on Sunday evenings after sitting awhile 
with them she would say, *^ Where are the 
clothes ? ' ' and with a cheery word would carry 
off the wash and do it herself on Monday be- 
fore (going to the University. 

During these years, Miss Sanford lectured 
some winters four or five nights each week all 



MARIA SANFORD 131 

winter, traveling from fifty to a hundred miles 
for each lecture, yet never missing a class at 
the University. As she was more and more 
sought as a speaker, the people of the state 
came to understand that she must travel at 
night in order not to miss her classes; and so 
when they thought of asking Miss Sanford to 
lecture, the first question was, **Is there a night 
train for herT' In these night travels she 
never took a sleeper, but curled up on the seat 
of a day coach, where, she insisted, she was 
perfectly comfortable. She would go directly 
from the station to her class room for her early 
morning work, as fresh as if she had gone from 
her home three blocks away. 



CHAPTER y 
CHRISTIAN'S BURDEN 

Among Miss Sanford's students in the late 
eighties, were some young men who became in- 
terested in real estate. There was a real estate 
boom in the city, and even the college boys be- 
came enthusiastic about bu^dng lots and putting 
up buildings. One of the young men in Miss 
Sanford's home became so involved that he 
gave up his college course and went into the 
real estate business for a time. He was so 
successful that the Professor succumbed to the 
temptation to buy land and put up houses. She 
bought many lots in her own neighborhood and 
had dwellings built by some of her students who 
earned their way through college by doing 
carpenter work in the summer. Miss Sanford's 
idea was not to get rich but to help others ; and 
she asked some of her Quaker friends in Penn- 
sylvania and other friends in Connecticut, some 
of whom were elderly and had a small amount 
of means, to invest their money in her enter- 
prise, in the hope of providing for their old age. 

132 



MARIA SANFORD 133 

It is worthy of note that her friends had such 
confidence in her ability and her judgment that 
they gave their money unreservedly into her 
hands. The exact amount she borrowed for 
this real estate enterprise cannot be deter- 
mined, but thirty thousand dollars is probably 
not too much to estimate. Some of it, however, 
was loaned by rich corporations. For a time 
everything went well, but the history of the real 
estate boom was like that of most booms. A 
collapse came, and caught Miss Sanford at the 
wrong time. The young student whose exam- 
ple she had followed had sold out before the 
failure and was a good many dollars richer for 
his experiment; but she unfortunately lost all 
the money she had invested. Though this loss 
was in one way the greatest trial of her life, it 
was perhaps in another way her greatest bless- 
ing. For a few years she was so harassed that 
her work at the University suffered. Students 
did not know what was troubling her ; some of 
them thought that she was lecturing too much 
and slighting her class work. They sensed the 
fact that she was not her usual self. Without 
knowing anything of the straits she was in they 
resented what they thought was lack of interest 
in her work and began to show dissatisfaction 
with the overburdened professor. She was 



134 MARIA SANFORD 

caricatured in the Gopher, the annual produc- 
tion of the Junior class, and a petition finally 
presented to President Northrop asking to have 
her dropped from the faculty. Hurt as she 
was, she felt that her work was too valuable to 
make it advisable for her to be dropped. She 
redoubled her efforts, braced herself to meet 
the trial, and keep on with her class work, giv- 
ing of herself more and more every day. To 
her firm friend Governor Pillsbury she confided 
her difficulties ; and he with his strong business 
sense advised her to go into bankruptcy and 
pay as much as she could of her debts. Some of 
the foremost bankers in the city gave her sim- 
ilar advice, but she would not listen, and de- 
clared that if her life was spared she would pay 
every cent of the money she owed, both prin- 
cipal and interest. To her glory and honor she 
paid that debt, although it took her more than 
thirty years. Not until she was eighty years 
of age did she feel free. Men who urged her 
repeatedly to do what any reputable business 
man would have felt it right to do, honored her 
so greatly for refusing that they are still talk- 
ing of it. 

Just how much money Miss Sanford bor- 
rowed it has been impossible to learn, as she 
never kept account books ; but large sums from 



MARIA SANFORD 135 

different people are on record. From one friend 
in the east she borrowed eight thousand dollars. 
After she had paid three thousand of the prin- 
cipal, this man offered to forego the interest 
and from that time on she paid fifty dollars a 
month on the principal. This man, eighty-five 
years old before the debt was paid, had an 
invalid wife and a frail daughter, all of whom 
had to live on the money that Miss Sanf ord was 
able to send him. Yet he never lost faith in her 
and in one letter wrote: *^I appreciate the 
efforts you have made, and the severe trials 
through which you have passed. Not many 
men or women, I fear, would have done so nobly. 
Still you have only proved yourself to be the 
Maria L. Sanf ord that N. W. Terrell told us you 
were, and that I believed you to be from what 
I saw in Middlefield in May, 1867, and in Ches- 
ter County later.'' 

Some years later, in another letter, he reiter- 
ates: **I have absolute confidence in your in- 
tegrity, and I have had abundant reason to 
have.'' When this debt was finally liquidated 
in 1908, the aged man wrote as follows : ' ' This 
brings to a finis one feature of our protracted 
experiences in finance that have been running 
now for nearly twenty-one years. While we 
have both been disappointed, it gives me pleas- 



136 MARIA SANFORD 

lire to know and say that I have found you in 
all these trying circumstances the very soul of 
honor and integrity. It was forty-one years ago 
last May that I first met you. . . . Your 
character has been put to a test that you did 
not seek nor expect, and it has been strength- 
ened and brightened thereby. These qualities 
you will carry with you from this little island 
of time on to the great continent of eternity. 
Certainly thine has been a rather re- 
markable career. I have lived eighty-four years 
and have met many teachers, but I can recall 
none whom I think entitled to the credit due 
thee. Few have taught as long, and not one that 
I have known contended so long and so bravely 
against adverse fortune, and in behalf of kin- 
dred and friends as thee has. . . . Then 
the last twenty years of thy history; — well, it 
reminds me of what I have read of the closing 
years of Walter Scott. Although thee has not 
been able to do all for me that I hoped finan- 
cially, thee has fully sustained my ideal of 
moral integrity. Very soon with us dollars will 
disappear, but character, all that will be left 
us, will endure. ... I enclose thy note; 
as a relic it will be of more interest to thee than 
to me. The pecuniary results of our acquaint- 
ance have not fully met our desires and expect- 



MAKIA SANFORD 137 

ations, but with one result I at least ought 
to be satisfied, for I have put Solomon in the 
background! *One man among a thousand 
have I found; but a woman among all these 
have I not found. ' Ecclesiastes 7 :28. ' ' 

From an elderly woman Miss Sanford bor- 
rowed six thousand dollars. That this friend 
also appreciated the effort made to repay her 
is shown in a letter written more than twenty- 
five years after the money was borrowed : * ^ On 
April ninth I wrote you and cancelled your note 
and sent it in my letter. My daughter wrote, 
hoping to get word to you at Seattle about see- 
ing her friend, and as you did not refer to 
either letter we know they could not have 
reached you. I do not like to risk sending this 
check back without asking you if it will be safe. 
I do not consider it mine. Perhaps you will 
receive my letters sometime after they have 
traveled around the country awhile.'' Miss 
Sanford was at the time on a lecture tour. A 
few days later she wrote again: ^^I was glad 
to get your good long letter, and thankful I 
have relieved you of some of your financial bur- 
dens. You give me credit for being more gen- 
erous than I was, for with the April check you 
finished paying all except the last thousand, 
according to my accounts. I am glad to close 



138 MARIA SANFORD 

the book, so do not give yourself any thought 
about it. I put that check in the stove." She 
refused to let Miss Sanford pay the last thou- 
sand dollars of the debt. 

A letter from a Minnesota business man only 
a year before Miss Sanford 's death shows that 
still another one felt the force of her endeavor : 
^^Both my wife and I are amazed at your great 
activity and ability to give such constant atten- 
tion to that heavy task of public speaking, with 
its many inconveniences and discomforts. 
When we think of all the good you are accom- 
plishing these days of unrest and pressing 
problems, we realize how great a blessing your 
leadership is in directing our thou,ghts along 
right lines, and I feel that I am almost heart- 
less to let you strive to keep up these monthly 
payments. Now I think it is time to say *Well 
done' to you as an expression of our high re- 
gard and esteem, and as a testimonial to your 
great leadership and helpfulness Ave want you 
to accept the remainder due ; and in any event 
the obligation is truly paid, and you cannot pay 
it twice.'' 

Other evidences of a similar feeling came to 
Miss Sanford from people in various parts of 
the country. From the family of a deceased 
creditor she received a cancelled note for sev- 



MARIA SANFORD 139 

eral hundred dollars. Among all her creditors 
there seemed to be only one person who had a 
different feeling. To this man, a rich business 
man, she owed eight thousand dollars. For 
some years he was a prominent member of the 
Board of Regents, and that may have had a 
bearing on the difficulty that Miss Sanford had 
in keeping her position in the University. On 
different occasions he had his la^vyer Avrite to 
Miss Sanford. One of the letters is as follows : 
*'I must now insist that without any further 
delay you give attention to my letter of the 29th 
ult. in reference to the note. Not hear- 
ing from you I have made several attempts to 
see you, but without avail. I will ask you to 
telephone us tomorroAV, and let me know when 
and where I can see you in reference to the 
note. To be entirely fair Avith you, I am 
obliged to say that inattention and indifference 
on your part will not only be of no avail to you, 
but will prove a detriment. The propriety of 
your course is another matter. The note must 
be fully paid or its payment definitely and cer- 
tainly provided for at once.'' In 1913 Miss 
Sanford finished paying this member of the 
Board of Regents. 

Her method all the years of paying back the 
money she owed was to set aside each month as 



140 MARIA SANFOED 

much of her salary as she could possibly spare 
and pay each of her creditors in turn a certain 
per . cent, of Avhat she owed. She began with 
the oldest people and those most in need. 
Some of these died before the debt was liqui- 
dated. Naturally, those to whom she owed most 
were the last, to be paid in fulL 

The Chicago Banker of June 15, 1907, in an 
article entitled The Banker a Man of Judgment, 
gives this tribute to Miss Sanford's effort: 

**0n the east side of Minneapolis and near 
the University lives a woman involved in the 
panic, who was paying her debts out of her 
hard earned salary and meager income, money 
which she needed for her advancing years. In 
sympathy for her I said, — ^Professor, men go 
through bankruptcy and get rid of such debts. 
If you do not want to do that way, let me ar- 
range a compromise, and you pay fifty cents 
on the dollar. Your creditors are rich cor- 
porations, and it will not hurt them to lose a 
little.' Was she pleased at my proposition? 
Did she thank me? Nay, verily! She rose in 
her righteous indignation and, spurned my sug- 
gestion. She , said, ^ My father taught me when 
I was a child that when storms of adversity 
attacked me I was not to yield weakly to the 



MARIA SANFORD 141 

gale, but rise and fight the blast. I could not 
sleep in my ,grave unless I paid my debts, and 
I shall pay them in full.' 

*^I had to permit that noble woman to pay 
my bank, as she paid others, to the last dollar. 
If some morning you see in stirring headlines 
that a new wonder has appeared in southeast 
Minneapolis, and that Elijah's chariot of fire 
and flaming horses have again swept down to 
earth, and that our beloved j^rofessor has been 
caught up to the heavens, do not be surprised. 
Only pray that her mantle of integrity may fall 
upon a worthy successor." 

She said at one time that she allowed herself 
only thirteen dollars a month for her personal 
use ; and for more than thirty years, even until 
she was past seventy-five years of age, she 
walked Avhere much younger and more healthy 
women rode on the street car. She ate always 
the plainest food, she dressed always in the 
simplest, most austere fashion, she did not even 
allow herself Avhite at her neck and Avrists. 
Her house had no luxuries. The rooms of stu- 
dents were comfortably furnished; her oa\ti 
room was austere to bareness, without even an 
easy chair. She was a great lover of good liv- 
ing, of good food, but one day she was speaking 
with enthusiasm of a very good dinner she had 



142 MARIA SANFORD 

just eaten at her home, and remarked that she 
had had a potato stew for dinner. She told 
one friend that she did not even use a match 
whenever she could use a paper spill instead. 
She split her own wood for the kitchen fire. 
She piled the wood in piles. She rose at two 
o'clock on Monday mornings and did her own 
washin,g for the house. She got down on her 
hands and knees and scrubbed her own floors. 
Students who were early risers sometimes saw 
a strange sight, that of Professor Sanford 
trundling a wheelbarrow toward her home from 
some place. near-by where she had been picking 
up wood or chips, but none of the students ever 
knew why these strange, unheard of things were 
being done. She was sensitive to criticism, but 
when she knew she had something to do no 
amount of criticism could swerve her from her 
chosen path. Her feelings were hurt more 
than once at class plays when some facetious 
student would imitate Maria Sanford in dress 
and action. Not even her colleagues on the 
faculty were aware of the burden she was bear- 
ing. Many of them considered her stingy be- 
cause she spent so little money on herself and 
was so averse to riding on the street cars when 
that seemed the natural thing to do. 



MARIA SANFORD 143 

One other way of saving money became so 
well knoA^^l and so mnch tallied of that the 
papers of the country during the world war 
spoke of the fact that an old lady, eighty years 
of age, was travelin,g across the country, giving 
patriotic lectures and refusing to ride in a 
sleeping car as long as the boys were suffer- 
ing such hardships in the war. The railway 
conductors and passengers who spread this 
story had no means of knowing that for thirty 
years before this time Miss Sanford had been 
doing a similar thing; in fact she never slept 
in a Pullman car. She had always saved that 
money. Once some years before the war she 
was invited to lecture in northern Saskatche- 
wan. Money was given her for her fare and 
for her sleeper. She remarked that she had 
ridden in a day coach; and when the horrified 
listener asked if the Canadian people had not 
given her money for a sleeper she said cer- 
tainly they had, but she knew of no easier way 
to make ten dollars than to save it and ride in 
a day coach. The remarkable thing about Miss 
Sanford 's riding in the day coach during the 
war was not that she was jSavin,g money be- 
cause the boys couldn't have comfortable sleep- 
ers, but that she was riding in a day coach at 
an age when most women are unable to ride on 



144 MAEIA SANFORD 

the cars at all. She was past eighty years of 
age when America entered the war. 

With this strenuous, ascetic, Spartan kind of 
living she reduced little by little the great debt 
on her shoulders, even though her salary at the 
University was cut at one time one-third, and 
was never raised until two years before her 
retirement at the age of seventy-two. When 
she retired she said to a friend that she hoped 
in three years more to be able to finish paying 
the debt, but ^ at the end of the three years told 
another friend that she must make before her 
death fifteen thousand dollars. How she made 
that amount of money in the next eight years 
it is impossible to tell. She averaged probably 
not more than ten dollars a lecture. She gave 
many lectures for nothing; some for two or 
three dollars ; a very few lectures for one hun- 
dred or two hundred dollars; but as nearly as 
can be estimated from the very imperfect and 
irregular accounts she kept, her lectures prob- 
ably did not average more than ten dollars 
each. She once made a written statement to 
the effect that she earned on an average four 
or five hundred dollars a year lecturing. Yet 
at the time of her ei,ghtieth birthday, in 1916, 
she wrote on a little scrap of paper a memoran- 
dum in which she said, ^*Mv debts are now all 



MARIA SANFORD 145 

paid but four thousand dollars. Now I can 
begin to live for others instead of living for 
myself as I have always had to do." A re- 
markable statement for one who never had 
lived for herself ! How the four thousand dol- 
lars Avas paid in the next four years it has been 
impossible to learn ; but that her debts were sat- 
isfied in some way or other seems probable from 
the fact that her executors stated a year after 
her death that nobody had presented any 
claims. 

When in the late eighties the petition men- 
tioned above was written asking for her re- 
moval, there were many students to stand by 
her. A group of men in the junior class went 
to see President Northrop to intercede in her 
behalf. One of the girls in that class was so 
troubled by the attitude toward her beloved pro- 
fessor that now, after thirty years, she feels 
that her University course was spoiled for her. 
There were only six girls in the class, but each 
of the six was particularly interested in some 
man of the class, several of whom were opposed 
to Miss Sanford. This young woman refused to 
have any thing to do with the Gopher of that 
year, and succeeded in thwarting some of the 
plans for the class play. The managers of the 
Gopher had the temerity to ask Miss Sanford 

10 



146 MARIA SANFORD 

to excuse them from the recitations while they 
were at work on the book, which was to hold 
her up to, the ridicule of the state. 

Some students believed that the opposition to 
Miss Sanford was founded on a sort of sex 
antagonism. Miss Sanford 's ideas for and 
about women were then fifty years ahead of her 
time. That Susan B. Anthony's appearance at 
the chapel should be the signal for nearly all 
the young men to cut the exercises is a case in 
point. When one of the boys was asked his 
reasons for the discourtesy he answered, ^^We 
despise all she stands for.'' Though Miss San- 
ford was not at that time a suffragist she was 
a friend of Susan B. Anthony and a believer in 
woman's rights. Her method of dress without 
doubt was another factor that created antago- 
nism among some of the men, as well as among 
many of the women. Her methods of teaching 
also were at the opposite pole from that of many 
of the other teachers. She paid little attention 
to the text book, whereas it was common in 
those days for instructors to stick closely to the 
words of the text. She was not methodical, 
and did not adhere closely even to a subject. 
She was not logical in her thought, but was con- 
stantly carried away by the beauty of some lit- 
erary gem which she would give to her stu- 



MARIA SANFORD 147 

dents. Those who profited by it thought this 
of more value than all the textbook work of 
their other instructors. This unusual method 
of teaching, with her unusual appearance and 
advanced ideas brought about the trouble with 
the students which added to her already over- 
burdened life. 

Her heart communings over the distress in 
her life resulted as so many times with her in 
the writing out of thoughts for her guidance. 
Those written at this time reveal much of her 
belief in the purpose and end of life : *^No mat- 
ter what comes to us, how we are ^battered by 
the shocks of doom,' if it but develop what is 
highest in us. What is the highest? I think 
it is the power to stand alone, power to seek 
the best things. Is not the highest end of life 
power and will to minister unto others? How 
can we minister if we have not been taught in 
the school of adversity? The best thing we get 
is not joy but strength." 

Another undated ^^ thought'' may well belong 
to this period. It is too helpful to pass by: 
*^We know that some people are speaking well 
of us all the time. Why not believe it of all, and 
get the reward of joy in our own hearts, and if 
we should chance to smile cheerily on some one 
who was cherishing unkind thoughts of us the 



148 MARIA SANFORD 

smile will not make those thoughts any more 
bitter and may perchance awaken kindly ones." 

In spite of her harassed state of mind Miss 
Sanford's teaching was not at this time con- 
fined to University class work. For several 
years she taught three evenings a week at the 
Woman's Boarding Home in Minneapolis, a 
home conducted for young working women. She 
asked only to be assured of enough students to 
give her two dollars an evening. Each girl paid 
twenty-five cents a lesson, and the superintend- 
ent was enabled to fill up her owm room with 
girls for each class. So enthusiastic were the 
young women that instead of two dollars she 
received seven or eight dollars each evening. 
In the three years she gave a course in Brown- 
ing, one in Kipling, and one in Riley, and some 
years later, after she had had a wonderful trip 
to Europe, she gave an art course to these 
young women using the beautiful photographs 
she had brought back. 

Another group of women in the same house 
took a course of lessons from her. These were 
teachers who wanted to refresh themselves with 
authors they already knew. Miss Sanford 
gave them two or three hours an evening in- 
stead of one. She was .so enthusiastic about 
her work that one very blizzardy day when she 



MARIA SANFORD 149 

fell on the ice and dislocated her shoulder she 
appeared at seven o'clock sharp for her class; 
and at nine o 'clock insisted on going home alone 
instead of staying all night as she was urged 
to do. 

Her interest in the individual was so sincere 
that the superintendent at one time ventured 
to send to her a girl who had come mysteriously 
from the east, a college girl without money. 
She had probably run away from home, but 
never explained how she came to be in want. 
The superintendent in a puzzle sent her to Miss 
Sanford, who gave her money from time to 
time, and tried in various ways to help her 
earn some for herself. 

In addition to teaching and lecturing, house- 
keeping and looking after her neighbors, she 
preached upon occasions. The one Friends' 
church in Minneapolis, small and frequently 
without a pastor, was one in which she was 
especially glad to preach whenever she was 
asked. 

At one period she preached for six months 
in a Universalist church which was without a 
pastor. ^Vlien asked on various occasions what 
she talked about, she said ** Religion." Indeed, 
it was difficult to gather from Miss Sanford 's 
preaching whether she had any formulated 



150 MARIA SANFORD 

creed. She was considered very liberal, and 
every one who spoke of her preaching remarked 
npon its lofty spiritual quality. A judge who 
attended this church said he always went out 
from the service feeling lifted up, glad that he 
had heard the sermon, but unable to reproduce 
even the main points in the talk. He always 
had the feeling that Miss Sanford's sermons 
were not well thought out, were not logical ; but 
that the spiritual effect was very marked. Her 
preaching never jarred ; she was general, never 
specific. He was always reminded of Whittier 's 
Eternal Goodness when he thought of her. 

A part of one sermon, which has been pre- 
served, may throw some light upon Miss San- 
ford's belief. Her text was, **God is a spirit, 
and they that worship Him must worship Him 
in spirit and in truth.'' ^'I do not Avish to deny 
the personality of God, but I cannot conceive 
or comprehend what a spirit is. That which I 
see of God is law, unerring and changeless, but 
none the less beneficent, none the less our 
Father. It is the very fact of the changeless- 
ness of God that makes His greatness, that 
makes our trust in Him. The old idea of a God 
dealing out only goodness and kindness makes 
necessary the idea of a devil. God was good, 
but here was evil; God was just but here was 



MAKIA SANFORD 151 

injustice ! But our idea of God being laiv gets 
rid of this difficulty. ^I am a jealous God, vis- 
iting the iniquities of the fathers upon the chil- 
dren unto the third and fourth generations of 
them that hate me/ I think that all through 
the operations of law right is stronger than 
wrong, and goodness stronger than evil. Law 
goes on. It develops certain organisms. They 
have their weaknesses, and these lead to their 
destruction. The weaker creations always yield 
in the battle to the stronger, the purer, the 
nobler ones. The things that are nearer to per- 
fection, nearest to God are the things that will 
at length inherit the earth. But this is a proc- 
ess that is slowly worked out, and worked out 
through the lines of law, not by the absolute 
crushing of God's hand, wiping out all wicked- 
ness. . . 

**God comes near unto us. He is not far 
off even though we call him long and seemingly 
in vain. I do not disclaim a personality in God. 
I am not able to comprehend. I have nothing 
to say. I only say that these are but a part of 
His Avays. The grandeur of eternity I cannot 
comprehend, but we see Him on earth and near 
to us. The most trivial things are under the 
law that is unerring. The greatest movements 
of the universe are bound by that same law." 



152 MARIA SANFORD 

To some who knew her in her home Miss San- 
ford 's religions feeling seemed more a matter 
of feeling for what is beantifnl in morals and 
in the literature of the Bible than the outcome 
of strong, personal faith. This was probably 
due to the fact that like many Puritans she sel- 
dom talked about her private beliefs. The care 
with which she kept and referred to a passage 
from George MacDonald is perliaps as clear an 
indication as one needs of her attitude towards 
religion : 'VLife and religion are one or neither 
is anything. Religion is no way of life, no 
show of life, no observance of any sort. It is 
neither the food nor the medicine of being. 
It is life essential.'' 

So indifferent Avas she to some observances 
which many consider essential that she some- 
times surprised and at other times shocked con- 
ventional people. Early one Sunday morning, 
for instance, after noticing a hole in the road 
near her home, and fearin,g some one might be 
hurt in passing, she wheeled ashes to fill the 
place and continued until good citizens began 
to pass by to church. At another time she dis- 
covered on Sunday morning that the potatoes 
in the cellar were sprouting; and as that was 
the only day she could spare she took care of 
her vegetables then. In such respects she de- 



MAEIA SANFOED 153 

parted from the Puritan teachin^gs of her 
youth. Necessary manual labor was at all 
times and in all places dignified and natural. 
One Saturday when she had been asked to 
speak to a gathering of teachers she rose early 
and cut up a quarter of beef before going to 
her lecture. At the home of a superintendent 
of schools in a town where she often lectured 
she used to help her hostess with the work. 

No small amount of unpleasant comment re- 
sulted from her long time custom of collecting 
in her skirts on her way to the class room in 
the Old Main stray papers defacing the beauti- 
ful campus knoll. These she deposited in a 
safe place until some gloomy morning when she 
used them to make a bright fire in the fire place 
in her class room; remarking smilingly as the 
students assembled that the material for the 
fire had cost the University nothing. As the 
University hired men to keep the campus clean 
critics thought a professor might find a worth- 
ier and more dignified use for her time. 

Some time after her death a student of the 
earlier days related another incident which had 
always touched her deeply. Before University 
Avenue was paved, there was at one time a 
mud puddle of some size just at the main en- 
trance to the campus which girls had consid- 



154 MARIA SANFORD 

erable difficulty in crossing. Miss Sanford on 
her walk of three blocks from home several 
times a day carried each time a little bag of 
sand which she emptied into the water until the 
girls could cross dry shod. Not heralded like 
Sir Walter Raleigh's picturesque act but of 
essentially the same type ! 

The more thoughtful students began at 
length to see something of the purpose animat- 
ing the unconventional acts of the only woman 
professor in the University and the ^^ Gopher'' 
from time to time recorded the change in senti- 
ment. In one number toward the close of her 
first decade in Minneapolis appeared the ad- 
miring tribute : 

A woman tropical, intense, 

In thought and act, in soul and sense. 

A longer characterization in verse by the stu- 
dents of this period has the whimsical tone of 
abashed admiration and affection: 

AFTER ALL 

Though she 's always in a hurry, in a flutter and a flurry, 
And she never seems attired for the ball; 

Noble qualities defend her and her soul is warm and 
tender — 
She's a pretty good Maria after all. 



MARIA SANFORD 155 

Though sometimes her little dealings may not soothe a 
person's feelings, 
And he lets his temper fly beyond recall; 
Still these deeds are done in blindness, and her heart is 
full of kindness — 
She's a pretty good Maria after all. 

Though she may not quite remember in her bustle each 
September 
All the names of those who came to her last fall : 
Still perfection's a delusion, and we come to the conclu- 
sion — 
She's a pretty good Maria after all. 

When her spirit has departed where the true and noble 
hearted 
Find reception in the great celestial hall; 
When her mortal dust is sleeping, we shall whisper softly 
weeping — 
She's a pretty good Maria after all. 



CHAPTER VI 
THE NEIGHBOR 

Miss Sanford's love for Minneapolis was 
shown in her attempt to make it more beautiful. 
The desire for municipal beauty was hardly 
awake in this country but the Professor deter- 
mined to arouse her own city at least to its de- 
sirability. To this end she founded in 1892 
the Minneapolis Improvement League. Its 
sole purpose was the beautifying of the city. 
Miss Sanford conceived the ambition of keep- 
ing the city as it increased in size free from the 
slums which used to be considered an unavoida- 
ble nuisance in any large city. Her endeavor 
was always to prevent evil rather than to re- 
form it. A favorite motto of hers was an epi- 
gram of Horace Mann : * ^ One former is worth a 
thousand reformers.'' Thirty years have 
passed and the league is still in existence. For 
the most part, the members were women, but at 
different times prominent men of the city were 
active in the work of the association. The con- 

156 



MAEIA SANFORD 157 

stitution stated that *Hhe object shall be to 
promote the cleanliness, health and beanty of 
the city. This organization shall keep clear of 
all political or party complications, its object 
being to promote intelligent co-operation be- 
tween the people and the people's officers in 
making Minneapolis one of the most healthful 
and beautifnl cities in the world." Meet- 
ings have been held monthly for the past 
thirty years except during the summer season 
and during the world war. 

The idea of the formation of the League 
came from work that had been done in New 
York and Chicago and in Whitechapel in Lon- 
don. Early in its organization seventy-five 
women were enrolled as members. The presi- 
dent proposed to distribute circulars that ad- 
vertised cleanliness and beauty, and to cultivate 
friendly relations mth building authorities. 
Placards were placed in the street cars asking 
people not to spit on the floor. Spitting on the 
street cars at that time was such a nuisance 
that one member of the League said she was 
obliged to buy newspapers to put on the floor 
before she got on the car. The Lea,gue was 
also asked to attend to the matter of spitting 
on the floor in the post office. By strenuous 
work in time they secured a city ordinance 



158 MARIA SANFOED 

making it unlawful to spit on floors of street 
cars or of sidewalks. 

Professor Sanford herself attended person- 
ally to various improyements. She prepared 
a pamphlet on the disposal of garbage and 
other similar subjects helpful to young house- 
keepers ; this paper she was asked later to read 
before the Women's Council. A doctor on the 
health board a few years later, told the League 
that the arrangements they had made for house 
to house collection of kitchen refuse was a vast 
improvement over any previous arrangement. 
Miss Sanford saw the commissioner of one of 
the city wards and persuaded him to have snow 
cleared from gutters and manholes. The So- 
ciety for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 
asked the League to see what could be done to 
prevent having rubbish in the streets that would 
injure horses. Miss Sanford called attention 
to the matter through the newspapers. In 
1895 she proposed a year of experiment with 
public bath houses, the friends of the measure 
to finance the experiment. In order to arouse 
interest in this measure she gave an account of 
her visit to the Health Protective Association 
at Philadelphia. The League was the first 
body to discuss the early closing of business on 
Saturday afternoons, and in other ways the 



MARIA SANFORD 159 

bettering of conditions of employees, such as 
the cashing of checks by employers. 

As was natural with a society of this kind 
the work of greatest interest was with the 
school children of the city. Beginning in 1893 
and continuing for ten years, the League gave 
flower seeds to the small children ^ for planting 
in their gardens at home, giving seeds at first 
to two schools. The results were so gratifying 
that the work was increased from year to year. 
At first Miss Sanford visited the schools and 
gave prizes for the best flowers raised. Later 
a special committee from the League member- 
ship went to the homes and inspected the gar- 
dens, giving prizes to the best ones. The first 
year twenty such gardens received prizes. As 
the work grew, the room in each school having 
the largest number of prize gardens was 
awarded a beautiful framed picture. These 
were the first works of art in the public schools 
of the city. When money was needed to pay 
for the pictures Miss Sanford gave courses of 
lectures on the subjects of the pictures selected, 
charging ten cents admission. In the course 
of ten years she gave half a dozen courses of 
such lectures. 

The fourth year fourteen thousand children 
were supplied with seeds, and the tenth year 



160 MARIA SANFORD 

forty thousand. The fifth year more than one 
hundred pictures were given as prizes. Though 
the membership of the League had increased 
by this time to nearly two hundred, Miss San- 
ford's lectures were needed to raise money 
enough to pay for so many pictures; notwith- 
standing that the art dealer, a public spirited 
citizen, gave several outright. 

The children were asked to give some of their 
flowers to the sick. They were also asked to 
co-operate with the League in the extermina- 
tion of the Russian thistle and the sand bur. 
For this they were formed into brigades which 
brought loads of the obnoxious weeds and 
burned them at the school. A street inspector 
of Chicago was so much interested in their re- 
sults that she organized the school children of 
that city into bands to help keep Chicago clean 
and beautiful. 

The Minneapolis Park Board one year pre- 
sented bulbs for winter planting to a number 
of schools; and the State Fair Association ex- 
hibited one year sixty bouquets from the gar- 
dens, awarding prizes to six of them. Teachers 
found the work the most enjoyable of the year, 
and the Minneapolis School Board sent a 
formal vote of thanks to the League. 

Two years after the formation of the League 



MARIA SANFOED 161 

it was admitted to the National Federation of 
Women's Clubs, and three years later to the 
State Federation, which asked the League to 
give a report of its work to the Omaha Exposi- 
tion. In this year, 1897, Miss Sanf ord resigned 
from the presidency because of the pressure of 
other duties; but promised faithfulness to the 
body as far as her time would permit. The 
members then thought it fitting to make her an 
honorary president for life. Some years later 
she was again made active president for four 
years. 

By 1897 the work of the League was so well 
known that women from other states were eager 
to learn the various methods used for improve- 
ments. The Park Outdoor Art Association 
asked Miss Sanford to present the work of the 
League to its members, as a result of which the 
League was invited to become an auxiliary to 
this body. Her paper was printed in the annual 
report of the association and also in the south- 
ern magazine American Homes. The League 
thus became so well known that inquiries 
poured in from all over the country. 

The work with the school gardens increased 
in scope when in 1898 the Government and Min- 
neapolis seed firms gave vegetable seeds to 
boys who wanted them. Professor Shaw of the 
11 



162 MARIA SANFOED 

Agricultural College gave wheat to any who 
wished to experiment in raising it; for some 
years, too, he showed the boys of two schools 
near his home how to care for vegetable gar- 
dens. The League showed their appreciation 
of his services by making him an honorary life 
member of their association. 

The children had by this time learned to raise 
flowers for their o^vn sake, because they loved 
them. So many of the schools had been fur- 
nished with pictures that the committee ex- 
perimented with plaster casts for prizes; but 
as it was difficult to interest the children in 
them, prizes of any kind were at length discon- 
tinued. Instead, the children were given shrubs 
with which to beautify their home lawns. Eose 
and lilac bushes and strawberry plants were 
given to those children who wanted them. The 
standard work on horticulture by Professor 
Green of the Agricultural College was put into 
all these schools and into the library, and the 
children encouraged to inform themselves on 
the best method of gardening. 

Interest in what the women had accomplished 
became so "wide spread that a group of public 
spirited men asked them to undertake the open- 
ing of a summer playground in some public 
school yard, the men to pay for the expense of 



MABIA SANFORD 163 

the experiment. The permission of the School 
Board was obtained, a supervisor hired, and 
the public asked to contribute toys and sand. 
Miss Sanford was made chairman of the com- 
mittee on this work. One member of the League 
taught swimming at this school, and another 
collected reading matter. The men who paid 
for the playground were made honorary mem- 
bers of the League. The experiment was so 
successful that the next year two playgrounds 
were conducted. The following season the 
School Board offered to conduct a manual 
training class; and the society of the D. A. E. 
presented the playground schools with flags. 

In the year 1902 the League supported the 
industrial and playground work, with the prin- 
cipal of one of the schools to overlook it. The 
following year five hundred were attending the 
summer schools; three buildings were in use, 
and nine teachers employed. Letters from as 
far east as New Jersey and Boston were re- 
ceived asking about the results of the work. In 
1904 a thousand children were taught manual 
training, cooking, sewing and nature study. 
After five years the League turned this work 
over to the School Board, which has conducted 
it since. 

Another field of work suggested by Miss San- 



164 MARIA SANFORD 

ford had a far reaching effect. She set forth 
the need of an educational committee which 
should see that the schools were visited by per- 
sons competent to suggest needful changes and 
improvements. The suggestion was favorably 
received; Miss Sanford was made chairman 
of the mothers' educational committee. They 
worked for better janitor service in the schools, 
for the abolishment of basement school rooms. 
Such were the modest beginnings of the present 
thoroughly organized parent-teachers' associa- 
tions in the city schools. 

Many other improvements for which the 
League worked met with less notable success. 
It tried to have the street car signs im- 
proved ; to have signs removed from trees and 
posts; and to have a law forbidding the de- 
facement of the landscape by huge signs in 
glaring colors; but the city still suffers from 
them all. Not until an outspoken European 
visitor wrote of the horror of the billboards 
everywhere confronting the traveler in the 
United States did a planning commission take 
steps to do away with unsightly advertising. 

The city water of Minneapolis had for some 
years been unsatisfactory, and the League took 
up the question of a pure water supply. 
Through its sub-committee on pure water, it 



MARIA SANFORD 165 

secured the appointment of the first Pure 
Water Commission and the first submission to 
the people of filtration bonds. This was accom- 
plished by arduous effort on the part of the 
League. Meetings were held in different parts 
of the city to arouse public interest, dodgers 
were printed urging attendance, and an expert 
was brought from New York. In the course of 
time an improved water supply was obtained. 

In 1898 the state fire warden aroused public 
spirited women to the necessity of preserving 
for a state park the handsome body of forest 
around Cass Lake, which included the Cass 
Lake Indian reservation. The women ^s clubs 
at once became interested, and the next year the 
president of the Federation of Women's Clubs, 
accompanied by Miss Sanford and one other 
woman, went to Washington and interviewed 
the President, members of Congress, commit- 
tees on Indian affairs, the Bureau of Indian 
Rights, the Commissioner of Public Lands, and 
the Secretary of the Interior with encouraging 
results, although nothing was done that year 
with reference to the reserve. The clubs con- 
tinued to Avork vigorously to prevent the de- 
struction of the valuable forests by lumbermen. 
After four years a bill was finally passed in 
1902 saving this and eventually other valuable 



166 MARIA SANFORD 

forest areas to the state. During these years 
Miss Sanford worked untiringly toward this 
end. 

At the close of the first ten years of the work 
the League was acting with the Park Board, the 
Commercial Club, the Board of Education, the 
City Council, the Board of Health and the State 
Legislature. Affiliation with so many organiza- 
tions made the members consider the advisabil- 
ity of disbanding. But as after deliberation they 
felt there was a real place for such a club, they 
discontinued their work only during the world 
war, and resumed it in 1921. Twice the League 
gave public expression of appreciation of its 
founder and most untiring worker; once in 
1912, when it made Miss Sanford its delegate 
to the Biennial of the General Federation of 
Women's Clubs at San Francisco; and again 
in 1916, when it held a public reception at the 
West Hotel in honor of Miss Sanford, who had 
again for four years been active president. 

As long as Miss Sanford remained an active 
member of the University faculty civic work 
of any kind occupied only a minor place in her 
activities. As the University increased in size, 
her classes increased in proportion. In 1890 
there were a thousand students. The money 
available for her department was not sufficient 



MARIA SANFORD 167 

to give her an adequate amount of help, so that 
both the number and the size of her classes in- 
creased with time. To stimulate the work in 
oratory in Miss Sanford's department, Gov- 
ernor Pillsbury gave for some years prizes for 
the best orations of the year. 

Miss Sanford conceived in 1890 a plan by 
which the members of her classes could have 
the use of many of the best text books in Rhet- 
oric and the history of art, sculpture, and archi- 
tecture, the lives of artists, copies of beautiful 
poems and essays, ^\dthout being asked to buy 
a great number of books. For her work she 
considered the few copies of such books access- 
ible in the library to be inadequate. She there- 
fore bought sets of books and rented them 
to the students for a dollar a year. This method 
required the work of assistants to give out and 
collect the books and keep the records. In spite 
of their best efforts so many books were lost 
every year that she was out of pocket. The 
method was not altogether satisfactory to the 
students, either, nor to some members of the 
faculty. There was for a considerable time a 
suspicion that she Avas making money renting 
books. As that was not considered ethical for 
a university professor, she had to endure con- 
siderable criticism. 



168 MARIA SANFOED 

As the years passed those who had left col- 
lege began to appreciate the value of Miss 
Sanford's teaching. One former student in 
writing to her said, ^*I have thought of you at 
different times, — how much you have had to put 
up with in many ways ; how brave and cheerful 
you always are, and with what vigor you meet 
each new discouragement and perplexity. I 
wish I might hope that my life troubles, when 
they come, would find as brave and true a 
spirit, a heart as warm and tender, and a mind 
as able and vigorous as yours. ' ' 

Another student the same year wrote from a 
larger university in an eastern state. This 
man remarked in his letter that he was sixteen 
years of age before he saw this country, and 
had to earn his own living while he went 
through the whole school system of the state 
of Minnesota. Said he : *' This is a great insti- 
tution of learning. I am proud of it, and glad 
to be one of its students, but I miss here that 
pleasant, intimate and confidential relation with 
persons in whose good will and superior intel- 
lect and character I could firmly believe. I have 
often heard you say in the class room that you 
did not consider it your only duty to teach 
rhetoric and composition, but also to help us 
to become better men and women. I think that 



MABIA SANFOED 169 

I even then appreciated your kind thoughtfnl- 
ness to a very great extent, because I had occa- 
sional individual talks with you, and always re- 
ceived your more than kind assistance in what- 
ever form I needed it, but I am learning to ap- 
preciate it still more now when I miss it and 
can no longer have it either in the class room 
or elsewhere. I have found nothing of that 
here. Miss Sanford. My professors are chem- 
ists, and I know them only as such. Of course 
they are good chemists and good teachers of 
chemistry, and as I came here to study chemis- 
try, I ought to be satisfied. I get all that I pay 
for, — all that I expected to get. I only wanted 
you to know how I feel about it, and that my 
memory of you will always be a little more 
fresh, a little more pleasing than that of any 
other professor, because you are something 
more than a paid instructor, — a kind and 
trusted friend." 

In the spring of 1895 Miss Sanford was away 
from the University for a time and her assist- 
ants carried on the work. A letter written by 
one of them gives not only an insight into the 
work of the department, but some pleasing 
touches about the University: *'I have felt im- 
pelled to break through the thick crust of habit 
that makes the writing of letters a rare and 



170 MARIA SANFOED 

strange thing to me, and to assure yon that in 
the place of your far eastern sojourn you are 
not quite unthought of by your friends and fel- 
low workers at home. It is a good thing per- 
haps to have the invisible cords that bind you 
to Minnesota pulled a little by the people of the 
western end so that you may not grow wanton 
in your freedom and forget that, however far 
the ball may have been unwound, the stake that 
holds it is j)lanted firm and deep in the soil of 
our own college campus. But I do not believe 
that your memory of Minnesota friends needs 
more than a very gentle jogging. I can fancy 
you thinking of us, not so very often perhaps ; 
for the happy present craves, I doubt not, the 
largest part of you all for itself. Miles unite 
as well as divide people, and I can well imagine 
that even in a milder climate, and amon,g your 
own kinsfolk your heart warms toward frosty 
Minnesota. 

*^The little world of which you are center 
and sovereign seems to run on with tolerable 
smoothness in your absence. You gave the 
hoop so strong a push before leaving it, per- 
haps it will keep on rolling from its own mo- 
mentum until you get back to it. A few events 
have broken the university routine since you 
left us. We have entered a term; we have 



MARIA SANFORD 171 

moved into the new building; we have had a 
visit from the Legislature. There was much 
begging by the Governor and many sallies by 
the President, and no end of compliments and 
promises from the flattered legislators. The 
Minnesota Magazine, which I have not read, 
but which strikes me as rather light, scrappy 
and popular, has taken the air for the first time 
in a delicate pink costume. And we have had, 
too, the Chicago man. Professor Moulton, a 
little fantastical and theatrical, but of delight- 
ful vigor and withal a man of larger build than 
the usual lecturer on his class of subjects. 

^'I hope you are doing for yourself in an in- 
tellectual sense what you are fond of doing for 
your class room at home, — suspending the rou- 
tine, throwing open all the windows and taking 
a good general airing, — ^letting your cares flut- 
ter and blow away as your papers are wont to 
do under like circumstances, and drinking in 
with greedy lungs the refreshment and stimu- 
lus of the great outside world. I mil not advise 
you to take a rest; I should almost as soon 
hope to persuade old Time to take a vacation; 
but I hope you will be moderate in your indus- 
try, and not work more than thirty-six hours 
out of the twenty-four. You must understand, 
last of all, that you are not on any account to 



172 MARIA SANFOED 

answer this letter. If it gives yon any pleas- 
ure I do not want that pleasure to be taxed 
with an associated responsibility and duty. 
This letter of mine is a pure gratuity, and you 
are not to insult the beneficent donor by any 
offers of repayment. It will not be many days 
anyhow before the sunbeam that wakes you in 
the morning will have to come to the Mississippi 
valley in order to be able to do it. ' ' 

In the middle of the nineties the department 
of oratory which Miss Sanford had labored so 
hard to build up was asked to become a member 
of the Northern Oratorical League. The en- 
trance into this League gave new impetus to 
the work in oratory, and the Professor then 
turned her attention to the classes in debat- 
ing. With characteristic energy she began to 
solicit money for prizes in debate. She wrote 
a great many letters to former students, ask- 
ing for five dollar contributions. These were 
sent each year, as she asked for them, by the 
majority of the men, but sometimes with words 
of disapproval. One man thought that a 
group of wealthy men or some of the alumni 
should be assessed a regular yearly sum for 
this purpose. One woman helped Miss San- 
ford out by asking fifty men to pay five dollars 
each. One man, a member of the Board of 



MARIA SANFORD 173 

Regents, and a former student, refused because 
he had paid so much for football. Miss San- 
ford got the money needed for the prizes, but 
always at the expense of great effort to her- 
self, and sometimes disappointment from people 
whom she had expected to contribute. 

The undergraduates as well as the graduates 
were coming more and more to realize the value 
of the services she was rendering, and at- 
tempted in various ways to show their appre- 
ciation. In 1899 the daily paper printed at the 
University, kno\vn at that time as The Ariel, 
dedicated one issue to Miss Sanford. A poem 
in her honor was written by one of the editors. 

To her wha wi' the winter's frost 
Her spring-time freshness hasna lost, 
Nay wark can iley, nor toil exhaust 

I* day or night, 
For duty never coonts the cost 

Gin 'tis but right. 

Wha can her youthfu' vigor bear 

Wi' wisdom o' a riper year, 

An' speak her min' wi' sic a clear 

Emphatic soun' 
She's weel respeckit everwhere — 

The country roun'. 



174 MARIA SANFORD 

Wha gars the lass take off her bonnet 
And frowns if there's a burdie on it, 
And yet her heart 's as true as granite 

An' kind as true, 
An' if nae mon has never won it, 

It's yet to do. 

Wha disna crimp an' bang her hair, 
Nor triflin ' gewgaws disna wear, 
For nature's plainest is maist fair, 

An' weel she knows 't, 
An' what the warl' thinks, disna care. 

For that's her boast. 

We dinna gie this as a bribe 
We canna thus betray oor tribe. 
Nor is't intended as a gibe. 

When we confess 
This Ariel fondly we inscribe 

To M. L. S. 

Joe Guthrie, '00. 

The students also took active part in a cam- 
paign whicli resulted this year in giving Miss 
Sanf ord one of the unique pleasures of her life. 
In the sprin,g of 1899 the Minneapolis Daily 
Journal conducted a public school and favorite 
teachers' contest. There were to be three 
prizes for the three most popular teachers. 
The first was a trip to Europe; another a trip 
to the National Educational Convention in Los 
Angeles; another to Yellow Stone National 



MAEIA SANFORD 175 

Park. Friends of Miss Sanford began to col- 
lect coupons with the hope of obtaining the first 
prize for her. She finally won third prize ; bnt 
some of the undergraduate students went to 
the Journal, offering to add to the money 
needed for the trip to Yellowstone Park enough 
to take Miss Sanford to Europe, provided the 
Journal was willing to make the arrangement. 
The Journal agreed, and Miss Sanford had her 
one and only trip abroad. A party of twelve 
left Minneapolis together, on a beautiful day in 
the middle of June. Miss Sanford 's household 
were as excited as she at the great event. The 
occasion was one of solemnity to her, and she 
made an unusually beautiful prayer at dinner. 
The party left for Montreal and from there 
sailed for Liverpool. 

On the boat trip Miss Sanford became the 
center of interest to passengers. She gave 
readings and lectures to entertain them, and 
they hovered around her. A man and his wife 
from Minneapolis who had never met her had 
passage on the same boat ; and a common friend 
wished to introduce them to the Professor. The 
wife, after a short visit with her, wished her 
husband to meet Miss Sanford too; but she 
knew that if he were forewarned he would not 
allow the introduction to take place. He had 



176 MARIA SANFORD 

never seen her, but lie had heard of her at the 
University and was strongly prejudiced against 
her; for even at that time not many women 
were occupying prominent positions, and in 
general he was opposed to women's ** usurping 
men's places". So his wife did not say any- 
thing until they were near Miss Sanford's 
steamer chair on the deck. The Professor im- 
mediately began to talk about some of the places 
she hoped to visit, and about architecture, a 
subject in which he was intensely interested. 
He sat down and listened to her, fascinated by 
her intelligence and womanliness. It was an 
hour or two before he again joined his wife in 
their walk about the deck ; much of his time the 
rest of the journey was spent in listening to 
Miss Sanford. The circle of men around her 
chair gradually grew larger; attractive, pret- 
tily dressed young girls were deserted for this 
plainly clad woman with her rare charm and 
magnetic personality. 

In London as elsewhere Miss Sanford spent 
much of her time in the art galleries. Though 
her taste was largely conventional, she was yet 
independent enough in her judgments to ex- 
press a preference often for paintings not 
highly regarded by the critics. She was most 
interested in the old paintings, especially of 



MARIA SANFORD 177 

the Virgin and Child, and in the saints. She 
made notes of her impressions, sometimes not 
at all what an art critic would notice, bnt things 
that particularly interested her. The Doge Leo- 
nardo Loredani of Giovanni Bellini she noticed 
had beautiful bro'\^^l eyes, and Crivelli's Ma- 
donna and Child Enthroned interested her par- 
ticularly because of the red canopy above the 
throne. Rembrandt's Woman Taken in Adul- 
tery she thought beautiful because of the sorrow 
and repentance of the woman. 

When she crossed to Paris she found the 
days hardly long enough, and got up at four 
o'clock one morning to walk about the city. 
Another day she arose at three o'clock to see a 
cathedral. She did not go to the hotels, but 
found the cheapest rooming places for herself, 
and took her meals at restaurants, keeping a 
daily account of everything she spent for lodg- 
ing, fees, and food, and for pictures. Her ex- 
pense account from day to day usually showed 
a much larger sum spent for pictures than for 
any other item, and sometimes as much as for 
all other items put together. In Italy she con- 
tinued to visit cathedrals as early as she could 
induce any one to allow her to enter; some- 
times she had to bribe attendants. In Florence 
the work of Fra Angelico particularly pleased 

12 



178 MARIA SANFORD 

her. The other early artists, Gentile da Fab- 
riano, Botticelli, and Giovanni da Bologna 
pleased her much better than some later paint- 
ers. She always expressed herself in later years 
as loving the Madonnas of the older artists; 
she thought the work of the modern painters 
less spiritual. Her breadth of religious sympa- 
thy made her feel at home in the Catholic ser- 
vices and on one occasion she wrote: **I at- 
tended early mass at the Cathedral. I have 
rarely seen one more impressive. As I listened 
to the low, musical words of the service, not 
hurried through as our English ritual often is, 
but given with reverence and feeling, my own 
heart cried out to God for forgiveness and 
blessing." 

Though she had no friends in Europe she had 
carried from home letters of introduction to 
people who would give her shelter during her 
stay in Venice and Rome. After two months 
of sight-seeing she set her face westward. On 
her way home she checked up her account and 
noted that the trip had actually cost her one 
hundred forty-one dollars. She had saved in all 
twenty-seven dollars of the money given her 
for the trip. The sum did not include the much 
larger amount paid for pictures which she had 
bought to use in her art lectures. She returned 



MARIA SANFORD 179 

to her classes in the best of spirits, having actu- 
ally seen and absorbed more in the two months 
than many people with more leisure and many 
times more money sometimes get in the same 
number of years. 

Her pathway was not yet however to be one 
of ease. The next school year was one of great 
stress for her. Early in the year she received 
a letter from the President requesting her to 
discontinue taking money from students for 
private tutoring, on the ground that all the time 
she gave to students belonged to the Univer- 
sity. He told her that the faculty had been 
very much excited over the matter. Two weeks 
later he wrote her another letter saying that a 
resolution had been introduced into the Board 
of Regents and laid on the table for considera- 
tion at a meeting to be held early in June, 
1900, providing that several members of the 
University faculty, including Miss Sanford, 
should terminate their connection with the Uni- 
versity at the end of the college year 1901. 

For this blow Miss Sanford was wholly un- 
prepared. It staggered her at first, as it did 
the other members who were in the same situa- 
tion. Miss Sanford was the only woman among 
the professors mentioned, but she was the first 
to recover courage. Long before the next 



180 MAEIA SANFOED 

meeting of the Regents the daily papers printed 
an account of the proposed action. A student 
reporter from the University had obtained the 
news. This at the time was thon,ght to be a 
great misfortune ; but in the end turned out hap- 
pily for the professors. Friends and alumni 
and clubs from all over the state began to pro- 
test. One prominent man wrote to Miss San- 
ford: **Ever since I read in our daily papers 
of the prospect of your severing your relations 
with the State University at the end of the 
present year, I have been much distressed about 
the whole matter. I cannot remove from my 
mind the impression that a serious blunder has 
been committed somewhere. As one of your 
old students, and as one who has sat under 
your instruction for four years' time, my 
acquaintance with you and your work since, 
and from the multitude of testimonials of your 
work and influence at the University, I feel 
sure that the Board of Regents are taking a 
step which can only be a subject of serious re- 
gret if your resignation should be accepted as 
has been intimated. A great number of your 
friends have also in my hearing expressed 
similar sentiments, and I have reason to be- 
lieve that this sentiment is very mde spread 
throughout the community. 



MAEIA SANFORD 181 

**Yoii have acquired a prominence in connec- 
tion with the moral and artistic upbuilding of 
our city and state at large which our citizens 
can not help remembering; and in ways which 
it is hard to explain we can not afford to dis- 
pense mth your services in this community. 
I am not only willing, but shall take the first 
opportunity to speak to any Regent of the State 
University whom I know and may meet in 
reference to this matter. ' ' 

These sentiments were echoed on every side. 
The same month the Woman's Council of 
Minneapolis, which later became the Woman's 
Club, wrote the following resolution of appre- 
ciation and presented it to President Northrop 
of the State University. 

''Be it resolved y That the Woman's Council 
takes this opportunity to extend to Professor 
Maria L. Sanford its heartiest thanl^s, and as 
mothers, sisters and daughters to express our 
confidence in her as a guide and inspiration to 
all those who have come under her instruction 
at our great University. We have abundant 
testimony of her far-reaching influence in her 
home city, throughout our state and adjoining 
states, and we desire that this expression of 
our love and confidence in her as an educator 



182 MARIA SANFORD 

should be conveyed to the Board of Regents of 
the University of Minnesota." 

Similar expressions of confidence in Miss San- 
ford and of protest at her resignation from the 
University poured in, and the result was that 
none of the members of the faculty who had 
been named was dismissed. Miss Sanford, 
however, in the summer of 1900, applied for the 
presidency of the University of Idaho, feeling 
that it might be better for her to go away ; and 
turning her face toward the pioneer sections 
of the country she went herself to Idaho; but 
as had been the case all her life, the Regents 
objected to a woman in the position that she 
was seeking. She remained at the University 
of Minnesota ; but a year later was notified that 
the Regents had reduced her salary from twen- 
ty-four hundred to ei^ghteen hundred dollars. 
There were some members of the faculty who 
added to Miss Sanford 's trials by criticising 
her method of conducting her department. 
This caused her so much trouble that she was 
obliged to appeal to the President, and to ex- 
plain to him that although she did not work 
exactly as some of the others did, she could do 
as good and lasting work as they could. She 
reminded him that she had won wide reputa- 
tion by her success as a teacher before some of 



MARIA SANFORD 183 

her critics were out of the grammar school; 
remarking that it was as much an impertinence 
for them to interfere with her department as 
it would be to interfere mth some of the men 
heads of other departments. Her plea was ef- 
fectual to some extent, but peace was never of 
long duration. 



cb:apter VII 

THE END OF THE TEACHER'S ROAD 

The great cut in Miss Sanford's salary of 
course rendered it more difficult for her to make 
the payments on her debt. In addition she had 
some new calls for help from members of her 
family which were as urgent as they would be 
to a mother. She felt with Thomas Carlyle 
that **If you have brothers, sisters, a father, a 
mother, weigh earnestly what claim does lie 
upon you in behalf of each, and consider it as 
the one thing needful to pay them more and 
more honestly and nobly what you owe. What 
matter how miserable one is if one can do that ! 
That is the sure and steady disconnection and 
extinguishment of whatever miseries one has 
in this world/' The family of one of Miss 
Sanford's near relations was in distress and 
Miss Sanford had to spare from her meager 
salary enough to help them out. Throughout 
her entire life the call of her family always 
came first. 

She did not overlook her neighbors in these 
184 



MARIA SANFORD 185 

distressful times as the following note from 
one of them shows: ^* Thank you very much 
for the wood, but you mustn't send any more. 
I feel that you surely could use it yourself some 
time if you would only keep it. You have done 
so much for us that we could never repay you 
and I do not want to think of it that way; but 
for a year I have longed to show you how much 
we think of you and do something in our turn ; 
only the way has not opened up yet. If you 
knew how I loved to bake you a little loaf of 
bread when I baked for our own people you 
surely would let me do it every time I bake. ' ' 

From time to time tributes continued to ap- 
pear in the University publications. One Val- 
entine Day the Registrar of the University, a 
former student of Miss Sanford and also a for- 
mer member of her household, printed in the 
Alumni Weekly the following characterization : 

Vivid, buoyant, 

Tireless, fluent; 

Full of vim. 

An occasional whim; 

Never a shirk. 

Not afraid of work. 

For mind or heart or hand; 

A lover of beauty, 

A doer of duty, 

As quick to obey as command; 



186 MARIA SANFORD 

A brain right clear, 

A heart full of cheer, 

Eloquent lips touched by altar's coal; 

She was still humanly, 

Just plain womanly, 

With a face index of a beautiful soul; 

Just as good as she was great, 

The best-loved woman of the North Star State. 

E. B. Johnson. 

The next year in the University Magazine 
appeared another student poem. 

Ripe wisdom, fruit of long experience, 

To grace her work she brings; 
The Brotherhood of Man she cherishes. 

And hopes of better things. 

In doing good she goes about, like One 

Who taught us long ago; 
Her lips speak from a heart forever young; 

God bless and keep her so! 

Vesta Cornish Armstrong. 

The Governor of Minnesota in 1903 ap- 
pointed Miss Sanford a delegate to the Prison 
Association. She understood this to imply that 
he had confidence in her ability and wished to 
show himself friendly to her ; and in her letter 
of thanks for the appointment she wrote: ^*I 
believe I shall be able to prove that those who 
had confidence in me were right. I shall try to 



MARIA SANFORD 187 

bear my present humiliations with dignity and 
by my faithfulness and devotion to duty to con- 
vince all who are willing to be fair minded how 
grave an injustice has been done me.'' 

This does not mean that Miss Sanford made 
no protest at the great reduction in her salary. 
She wrote the Board of Regents a moving let- 
ter in which she said: *^I do not ask at this 
time any change in my salary. I appreciate the 
difticulties of the present situation and I am 
willing to wait for better times; but I do 
earnestly request you as men who want to do 
what is just and right to inform yourselves as 
to the condition of my department. It is not 
the reduction of this year against which I pro- 
test but my reduction from the rank I held. My 
pride in my professional reputation is very 
great and the degradation which I have suffered 
has been far harder than the iDrivation which 
the change has brought, although the latter 
would be considered very severe by any one 
who knew its extent. My age has been men- 
tioned as a reason for this reduction, but where 
can you find a woman of thirty-five or forty or 
a man of that age who has more vigor and endur- 
ance, and where a professor Avho puts in more 
hours of effective work? I am carrying now 
eighteen hours of recitation per week besides 



188 MARIA SANFORD 

managing my department and giving it super- 
vision and preparation of public debates and 
oratorical contests which take a large amount 
of time. Is it right that a person doing this 
work and doing it well should be hampered and 
crippled by a salary which compels her to do 
menial work to pay for a bare living? Under 
the circumstances under which I am placed, 
and which when all told would hardly be con- 
sidered discreditable to me, I can not live with- 
out such labor. Years ago I made pledges of 
monthly payments which I must keep, and I 
have with my present salary just thirteen dol- 
lars left to meet my own expenses. Trusting 
to your honor and sense of justice, I shall go 
on working hard and meeting privations cheer- 
fully, believing the time will come when I shall 
have the great delight of full vindication and 
the complete restoration of my salary." 

Miss Sanford's troubles however were not 
yet over, as was indicated by a remark made to 

, her by the President in June, 1904. Referring 
to the Regents he said, * * They are after your 

/ department anyway and will be as long as you 
are there." That this was known outside the 
University was shown by a letter written by 
the President of the Minnesota Federation of 
Women's Clubs to Miss Sanford, telling her 



MAEIA SANFORD 189 

that she had heard that there was a scheme 
against the professor and asking if the Fed- 
eration might be allowed to protest, saying that 
they did not want to meddle or in any v/ay want 
to interfere nnless they conld be of help. 

In April 1905 Miss Sanford at the request of 
the President sent to the Chairman of the Sal- 
ary Committee of the Board of Regents a com- 
parison of her work mth that of five other 
heads of departments closely associated with 
her. The comparison gave the work of each 
professor in each department, the number of 
his classes, the number of students in each, and 
the number of hours a week given to each class. 
This comparison showed not only that her de- 
partment had the largest number of students 
but that she taught the largest number of 
classes. She asked to have enough money for 
her department with which to employ compe- 
tent teachers and also to give her the salary 
which her work should command. She closed 
her letter with the following plea: *'More 
earnestly than I ask for justice for myself I 
ask that I may have for my department the 
salaries that will retain efficient instructors and 
encourage those that are doing good work for 
small pay. ' ' 

This year she, as well as many other members 



190 MAKIA SANFOED 

of the faculty, had the hardship of being obliged 
to hunt for recitation rooms in any vacant spot 
on the campus. The Old Main building had 
burned to the ground the year before and many 
of her pictures and books had been destroyed 
and others ruined by smoke and vrater. Miss 
Sanford found a desk for herself in the Libra- 
rian's private ollice, and for class work she had 
to go from one building to another. The classes 
of her assistants were scattered all over the 
campus. Some were held in the store room of 
the School of Mines, where the students dis- 
cussed the poetry of Browning and Kipling in 
the uncongenial company of liarrels and boxes 
of ores. Other classes were held in the base- 
ment of Pillsbury Hall in the Animal Biology 
department; and two classes at a time, one in 
Ehetoric and one in French, were held a few 
feet from each other in the museum of the Bio- 
logical department with skeletons of prehis- 
toric animals as decorations for the class 
rooms. Some were held in the Physics build- 
ing. As Miss Sanford 's department was the 
largest one in the University this meant more 
scattering about for her work than for that of 
any of the others. This continued for two 
years until Folwell Hall was completed in the 
fall of 1907, when she had her department to- 



MAEIA SANFORD 191 

gether again on the third floor of the new build- 
ing. 

This year was memorable also as the one in 
which she was obliged to leave the home in 
which she had lived since 1881, and which stu- 
dents had so long felt to be unalterably asso- 
ciated with her. Many owed their chance for a 
university education to their being sheltered 
there. The single pine tree on the corner of 
her lawn, slanted but never bent or broken by 
the frequent Minnesota blizzards, seemed sym- 
bolic of the life she had led in the home she 
loved so well. Though it never attained the 
size of a forest pine it was for many years a 
land mark of the South East side and asso- 
ciated in the minds of hundreds of students with 
a professor whose memory remained as fresh 
as its evergreen branches. Financial embar- 
rassment obliged her to give up this home and 
take a house in a new neighborhood a mile from 
the University. To one of her friends she said 
that the removal from that home tore her heart 
up by the roots ; it seemed like tearing an oak 
out of the ground for her to move. Yet she 
began at once to make herself felt in her new 
environment. She took her church letter to the 
small church near her. She often preached 
when the minister was away or sick. She fre- 



192 MARIA SANFORD 

quently said she loved more to preach than to 
teach or to lecture, and thought her real life 
work should have been preaching. In a year 
from the time she moved, an old resident of that 
part of the city said Miss Sanford had done 
more for the neighborhood and the church in a 
year than any one else had done in all the 
twenty-five years of her own residence there. 
Miss Sanford, in writing to a friend at this 
time, said, **I do have a good time. I do enjoy 
my days — every one of them — and I often say, 
*The lines have fallen to me in pleasant 
places.' " 

Her real power in the work of her church is 
sho^vn in the history of Congregational Work 
In Minnesota compiled by the archaeologist 
of the State Historical Society of Minnesota. 
In the chapter on Women's Work For Mis- 
sions written by Dr. Margaret Evans Hunt- 
ington, for many years Dean of Women of 
Carleton College, is the following: ^Congre- 
gational women have had their due part in the 
educational progress of Minnesota. The out- 
standing example among these women is Miss 
Maria L. Sanford . . . her magnetic per- 
sonality and resonant voice and sympathetic 
womanly understanding gave a new atmosphere 
to the University and especially to the young 



MARIA SANFORD 193 

women there . . . her co-operation in every 
good work, her fearless advocacy of unpopular 
causes are noteworthy . . . she by her ethical 
standards, her ever ready sympathy with all the 
efforts of her pastor or felloAV members had a 
large place in church life. Her best memorial 
will be the noble lives of those whom she has 
stimulated and helped. ' ' 

In the same work the Rev. S. W. Dickinson, 
in his chapter The Part Congregationalists 
Have Had in the Charities of Minnesota, in 
reference to Miss Sanford wrote : **More than 
any other woman of her time she had an abid- 
ing influence upon the young men and women 
who passed through the State University. 
It was through her efforts that the girls were 
separated from the boys in the Training School 
at Red Wing and that a home was established 
for them at Sauk Center.'' 

Miss Sanford 's ncAv home had some apple 
trees, a garden, a lawn and a barn. She 
planted more trees in front of her house, and 
got some chickens for the barn. For a time 
one of her elderly friends to whom she had for 
many years owed money lived with her in this 
house and for amusement cared for the chick- 
ens. Miss Sanford became as much interested 
in pure blood Pl^miouth Rock chickens as she 

13 



194 MARIA SANFORD 

had always been in fresh air. She always 
w^alked back and forth from the University to 
her home, and usually winter as well as sum- 
mer, went bareheaded. Nearly always her 
arms were filled with books or baskets or 
bundles of some sort. Frequently she carried 
home a basket on the top of which a pile of 
books was placed. Men students on their way 
would always relieve her of the baskets. Smil- 
ingly she told some friends that underneath the 
pile of books she had some scraps from the 
kitchen of a friend, which she took home for the 
chickens. She had placed the books on top of 
the basket so that the boys would not be humili- 
ated by the knowledge that they were carrying 
chicken feed. 

But her ^greatest interest in her new home 
was in her beautiful apple trees. She watched 
the blossoms in the spring. She had a sleeping 
porch built at the back of the house and a door 
opening close to the green boughs. She used 
to say that no king had a more wonderful place 
than she in her sleeping porch right among the 
branches. She had never before had fruit trees 
of her o^vn, and she anticipated the time when 
her apples would be ready to eat. But the first 
fall just when the fruit was getting ripe Miss 
Sanford found out that small boys are no re- 



MARIA SANFORD 195 

specters of other people's apple trees. She 
said that she took to sleeping under her trees 
nights to prevent boys from taking the fruit; 
but she soon realized that she could not stay by 
them all day, and the boys could take apples in 
the day time as well as at night. 

She, however, thought of a remedy which 
was characteristic of her, but which no one else 
in the neighborhood had ever thought of. She 
went around to the seed houses in Minneapolis 
and to the nursery men and asked them to give 
or sell her for a small sum seedling apple trees 
and other fruit trees or flowering shrubs and 
plants. Then she called the children of the 
neighborhood together and told them she had 
these things to sell to them at a very small 
price. To those who were unable to pay Miss 
Sanford gave an apple tree. But it was never 
her policy to give things which people ought to 
buy, and in some way or other she made the 
children pay; if not in money, then in labor. 
She told the children that they could each have 
their own apple trees, raise their oAvn apples, 
and have their own flower and vegetable gar^ 
dens. She encouraged them by visiting their 
gardens and offering prizes for the best flowers 
the children could raise. Whether she ever 
had any more trouble with children stealing her 



196 MARIA SANFOED 

apples she never said; but if so, it is safe to 
say it was not from the same children who re- 
ceived these trees. This incident so endeared 
her to the neighborhood that she was ever after- 
ward regarded as its benefactor. In the next 
fifteen years of her life she grew into this 
home as she had done in her earlier one, but 
doubtless never had quite the same affection 
for it that she had for the other. She felt such 
an attachment to it that in the memorandum of 
her wishes she asked the niece to whom she left 
the home to continue to live in it and not sell it. 
December 19, 1906, Miss Sanford reached her 
seventieth birthday and her tAventy-sixth year 
in the University. The Women's League of 
the University held a reception for her in Alice 
Shevlin Hall, the woman's hall which had been 
built on the site of the Old Main. The Presi- 
dent and his wife, the Governor of the state and 
his wife, the deans of the University with their 
wives, and the only other woman professor in 
the University received with Miss Sanford. 
Hundreds of former students and friends were 
present on this occasion, and the hall in the new 
woman's building was crowded. All seemed 
anxious to make Miss Sanford feel how much 
they owed her. The Alumnae had a portrait 
of Miss Sanford painted by a Minnesota artist. 



MARIA SANFORD 197 

Miss Grace McKinstry, wMch was placed in 
Alice Shevlin Hall as a fitting expression of 
their appreciation. The artist said later that 
Miss Sanford was the most difficult sitter she 
had ever had; because the only time she had 
free was at noon when she was so weary 
she fell asleep. The Women's League of the 
University in memory of the occasion desired 
to make Miss Sanford a present personal 
enough to remind her of the very affectionate 
regard in which she was held; and they with 
other friends made up a purse which they gave 
her to buy a coat and muff. She told them she 
never had expected to own so fine a garment, 
but that they might rest assured it was the same 
woman inside that they had known all along. 
She wrote to a friend after the reception *4f I 
had not been battered by the rebuff of years I 
might have had the big head, but I think I am 
safe. It did, however, make life seem very 
beautiful to me to feel so much of sympathy 
and love." One other gift which she received 
late in life gave her unique pleasure because it 
was the only jewelry she ever possessed. This 
was a beautiful gold watch and chain given her 
by her Sunday School class. The satisfaction 
she took in wearing these could hardly be un- 
derstood by the many women to whom a watch 



198 MARIA SANFORD 

is as much a part of every day dress as a hat 
or gloves. 

There was very general appreciation of Miss 
Sanford's service to the State of Minnesota of 
more than a quarter of a century, but there 
were still troubles ahead of her at the Univer- 
sity. Five months after this celebration she 
wrote a will, one among many which she wrote 
out and dated from time to time, knowing that 
they had no legal value, but believing that her 
heirs would respect her wishes. She kept all 
of them. In the one written at this time, she 
was in such stress of mind that she closed it 
with the sentence, *^If I should lose my mind 
and live, do, I beg, quietly put me to sleep.'' 

In May, 1907, Miss Sanford not having suc- 
ceeded in getting from the salary connnittee 
of the Regents what she felt she needed for her 
department appealed to the Governor regard- 
ing what she felt to be injustice. Among other 
things she stated, ^*I do want recognition of 
the value of my work, and there are other grave 
reasons why my salary should be made equal 
to others in the same rank. In the first place 
I am determined to make my department shine, 
I shall work as never before to improve it in 
every way. I am hindered by poverty, by many 
petty cares and economies which take time and 



MARIA SANFORD 199 

energy. For years I have put in all my salary 
to pay my debts. The lecturing which I have 
done in order to get money on which to live has 
brought me about two hundred fifty dollars 
yearly, but it has really been more wearing 
than all my University work. Ought I to be 
compelled to do this? I do not let it rob the 
class of my time, but it does take my strength. 
It is good for me and for the University that I 
give some lectures, but not that I be obliged to 
depend upon them to live. If my salary could 
be made three thousand dollars for five years 
I could clear otf all this debt that weighs me 
do^oi. I know I have no claim because of my 
debt, but I do think it is some credit that I chose 
to pay it when even Governor Pillsbury advised 
me to repudiate it, and the fact that I have this 
burden is an added reason why I should have 
the salary I justly earn. ' ' 

By the close of the school year it was known 
that Miss Sanford would retire in two years 
more. Her salary was increased as she had 
requested to three thousand dollars, but as she 
had only two years more of University work,^ 
she was, at the time of her retirement, still 
heavily in debt. The increase, however, en- 
abled her to retire on a Carnegie pension of 
fifteen hundred dollars. 



200 MARIA SANFORD 

About this time the result of Miss Sanford's 
lectures at the University on the History of Art 
began to be shown in letters from former stu- 
dents. Some of them said that their first wish 
to travel had been aroused by those lectures, 
and that their interest in what they saw was 
wonderfully enhanced by her vivid descrip- 
tions. To understand why a professor of 
rhetoric gave art lectures, it is necessary to ex- 
plain that for most of the years Miss Sanford 
was at the University there was no art depart- 
ment. Her lectures were therefore the only 
means hundreds of students had of getting any 
knowledge whatever of the great art of the 
world. She felt that justified her in departing 
from the work strictly belonging to her depart- 
ment. 

After Miss Sanford w^as seventy years old 
she sent to her niece in Smyrna for three of the 
young children of the family, whom she pro- 
posed to educate. These she sent to a private 
school in Minneapolis, but outside school hours 
they were left at home many hours of the day 
with no older person to look after them. Born 
in a foreign country, they were unable to adapt 
themselves at once to American life. After a 
time one of them returned home; one to the 
father's relations in Scotland; the youngest 



MARIA SANFORD 201 

remained in this country, and is still pursuing 
his education. Miss Sanford had raised so 
many children that the task of taking three at 
once in her old age did not seem too much for 
her. 

In February, 1909, shortly before she was to 
retire. Miss Sanford was obliged to have an 
operation for mastoid abscess. Her age and 
the difficulty of the operation made her recov- 
ery seem a matter of doubt. She herself was 
not unprepared for an unfavorable outcome, 
and before leaving her work appointed two 
members of her department her literary exec- 
utors in case she should not recover. The opera- 
tion was successfully performed, and Miss San- 
ford was back at her home long before the doc- 
tors gave her permission to raise her head from 
the pillow. One morning she announced that 
she was going home that day. The doctor 
emphatically refused permission; but she re- 
peated her intention, and as soon as he left the 
hospital ordered the nurse to call a carriage. 
She departed in triumph for her home, and in 
less time than anybody had predicted was back 
at the University at her regular class work. 

The Senior class of this year wishing to show 
her due honor on the occasion of her retire- 
ment asked her to give the commencement ad- 



202 MARIA SANFORD 

dress. She felt this to be the greatest honor 
that had ever been shown her. At commence- 
ment time papers in various parts of the conn- 
try noted this as being the first time that a 
woman had ever been asked to make such an 
address in a great university. This memorable 
address entitled What the University Can Do 
For the State, was considered one of the best 
commencement addresses that had been given at 
the University of Minnesota. The Armory 
was filled, and every word of Miss Sanford's 
address could be heard to the farthest corner 
of the great building. She had that week been 
made a member of the graduating class, and 
at the close of her address they presented her 
with an enormous bouquet of six dozen roses, 
one for each of her seventy-two beautiful years. 
A poem in honor of her retirement was written 
by a former student of her own who had 
been for many years a member of her depart- 
ment. 

EVEN-SONG 

The full orb brightens as it rounds — 
We hail the life that onward fares, 
To kindly leisures, gracious cares, 

To lessened labors, ampler crowns. 



MAKIA SANFORD 203 

happy in the powers that flee, 

And happy in the charm that stays — 
Light streams from toilful yesterdays 

And clear to-morrows, calm and free. 

Let gentle hours in rhythmic sands 

Glide on; and Time in reverence stop. 
And, gazing on her, pensive, drop 

The edgeless sickle from his hands. 

Let Rest come with the touch benign 

That soothes and stills the hurts of man, 
And Age, the kind Samaritan, 

Pour in the healing oil and wine. 

With harvest trophies round her shed 
May the good sheaves, in order filed. 
The sheaves her own hand reaped and piled, 

Be prop and pillow for her head ; 

And may in glad revival rise 

For her the deeds her bounty wrought 
In others ' warm and grateful thought, 

In cordial clasp and tender eyes; 

Nor ends the joy of service now; 

'Tis autumn's glow — and not the grief — 
The bright fruit, not the withering leaf. 

That reddens on the orchard bough. 

Oscar W. Firkins, '84. 

This was the greatest day of Miss Sanford's 
life. She was leaving after twenty-nine years 



204 MARIA SANFORD 

an institution which she had seen grow from 
three hundred students to nearly five thousand, 
at this time one of the largest universities in the 
country. At the close of the public exercises 
she was invited to the home of an old friend 
where a dinner to which some of her neighbors 
and closest friends had been invited was given 
in her honor. With her enormous bouquet she 
rode in state in her friend's car first to her own 
home, where she deposited her seventy-two 
roses in a wash tub full of water in the middle 
of her kitchen floor and then returned to the 
banquet. The next day one of her friends took 
a photograph of Miss Sanford standing on her 
lawn, holding in her arms her ** graduation 
bouquet." 

Many of the beliefs Miss Sanford had un- 
waveringly held from her youth were reiterated 
in her commencement address. First she de- 
clared that the University should teach its stu- 
dents to help solve the social problems of the 
time. **It is the glory of the Anglo-Saxon peo- 
ples", said she, **that among them in the great 
struggles of the commons against the nobles, 
of the downtrodden against the privileged 
classes the oppressed have always found strong 
supporters and wise leaders among the upper 
classes, especially among the educated; and 



MARIA SANFOED 205 

therefore the commons have been restrained 
from that bitterness and those excesses that 
have marked political and social revolutions 
among other races. If this is to hold true in 
bur state and nation it will be by the training 
of the youth in the traditions of our race, so 
that the rich and gifted may hear the cry that 
comes up from the poor in their ignorance and 
squalor, and be proud to come to the rescue, to 
give their minds and hearts to devise and carry 
out plans and measures of relief. The great- 
est difficulty in the way of such efforts is the 
unwillingness of the upper classes to believe 
that there is really any wrong to be righted, 
any injustice to be redressed. Here is the op- 
portunity of the University. It takes the youth 
of wealth and position, and puts before them 
facts, and opens their eyes to conditions they 
might otherwise ignore. It stirs them with 
ambition to throw in their power and their 
means among the helpers ; and sets before them 
instead of the paltry ambition to outshine others 
in luxury and show the high aim of helping to 
solve the social problems of their time, to make 
our state a shining example of justice, happiness 
and peace." 

She also held it to be the duty of the Univer- 
sity to teach democracy, and as a preparation 



206 MARIA SANFORD 

for this believed in the necessity of sending 
children of wealth to the public schools. 

She felt that the University had hardly be- 
gun to enter upon its privilege of stimulating 
to high scholarship. 

^^We cherish with pride," she continued, 
** these first fruits of scholarship, but we long 
for a fuller harvest. Our University is coming 
into its manhood and should show a manly 
grasp on intellectual things. It is the atmos- 
phere of learning, an eager grasp on the hard 
tasks of scholarship which is the greatest need 
of the student body of the University today. 
. . . Everywhere there is a demand and 
opportunity for those who combine intellectual 
insight with a high order of training and skill. 
Life and health, business and civil polity are 
all more or less resting upon half knowledge 
and empirical deductions. They sorely need 
the facts and principles which the search light 
of discovery will reveal to the sound judgment 
of the broad-minded, patient, tireless scholar. 
Such scholars we have a right to look for among 
the alumni of the University." 

Her belief that it is rather will power than 
greater ability which is needed to accomplish 
great things was set forth with force and vivid- 
ness : ^^The causes of intellectual development" 



MARIA SANFORD 207 

she said, **are recondite, and at best are only 
imperfectly understood, but there is good 
reason to believe that what is needed for high 
attainment is not so much more brain as more 
will, or as some psychologists would phrase it, 
Hhe motive power of those impulses and aims 
that lead to action. ' My own conviction is that 
more than half our brain lies dormant, smoth- 
ered under weak and narrow aims. As proof 
of this witness the intense power that individ- 
uals and connnunities sometimes develop under 
the stress of strong emotion and passion. Let 
each one recall how he has sometimes gone quite 
beyond himself and done what he beforehand 
would have deemed impossible. His muscular 
and nerve power w^as unchanged but a strong 
purpose summoned the brain and its minions 
to full activity. How great would be our 
achievement if we could keep to this high plane, 
not feverish excitement but full and vigorous 
activity, always intently alive. Individuals 
have done this, have lived year in and year out 
with all their faculties awake, and we look with 
wonder on Avhat they have accomplished. 
There are many whose lives illustrate my point. 
I will mention only two, both women, Mary 
Somerville, and Alice Freeman Palmer ; women 
of calm, sane, womanly lives, but of wonderful 



208 MARIA SANFORD 

activity. Mrs. Somerville was so clear-headed 
a mathematician that she made a perfect trans- 
lation of La Place 's Mechanism of the Heavens 
when not one hundred men in England were 
able to read it; and was withal so careful and 
competent in her domestic duties, so devoted 
a wife and mother, so charming a hostess, that 
the critic Jeffrey, who was, as we all know, 
chary of compliments, when he was visiting in 
Scotland and received a letter from a friend 
asking if he had met the women of Dumfries, 
*one of whom aspires to be a blue-stockin,g and 
an astronomer' replied, *I have met the lady 
to whom you refer; she may wear blue stock- 
ings but her petticoats are so long I have never 
seen them.' Of the wonderful life of Mrs. 
Palmer I hardly need to speak, it is too fresh in 
the memory of all; we are all too proud of her 
to need to be reminded of what she accom- 
plished. The one thing I do wish to say is that 
it was with her, as with Mrs. Somerville, vital- 
ity which was her remarkable gift, which made 
her so charming in society, so successful as a 
college president, such a wonder-worker in 
charity, so deft and skillful in the duties of her 
home — here as every^v^here making *her labor 
her delight.' 
*^I have dwelt fuU}^ upon this point because 



MARIA SANFORD 209 

I believe men and women would be spurred to 
far higher development if they were convinced 
that it is not some special genius conferred 
upon the few, but the wise use of the gifts com- 
mon to all, that makes life rich and valuable. 
Nations as well as individuals have shown the 
marvelous results of this intellectual activity, 
of living up to the full measure of their powers. 
England under Elizabeth, Athens in the days 
of Pericles and all Western Europe in the 
Renaissance are examples of what is possible 
when every man is awake, when full life throbs 
in every vein. We cannot believe that men 
were then born with more brain than is given 
at other periods, but some influence led them to 
use to their full bent, and for worthy ends, the 
powers that men at other times let sleep. 
There is direct proof of this theory in the vital 
power that certain men have given to a whole 
people. I need mention but a single instance, 
the influence of William Pitt on England. We 
all know how his voice transformed the whole 
nation, how it sprang up at his call conscious of 
its strength. This has been the secret of the 
success of nearly all the great leaders of men; 
they knew how to call up the latent energy of 
their followers, to put into them a purpose and 
a determination that made them giants. Under 

14 



210 MABIA SANFORD 

this influence they seem to be of other birth; 
and the glory of it is that so far as this trans- 
formation goes, once made conscious of their 
power they can never shrink back into the idle 
weaklings they were before. The men that 
fought with Caesar, that stood by Clive, and 
that conquered with Gustavus, could never after 
rank themselves with cowards. 

**The moral of this for the University is 
plain. It may, it can, it should, give to the 
youth of the state this awakening impulse, 
breathe into them this breath of life, rouse them 
not to mere physical courage but to the courage 
of high conviction, give to them aims, ambi- 
tions, purposes, which shall transform, trans- 
figure their whole lives. 

*'It is the rare privilege of an institution of 
learning thus to speak to the soul. 

So nigh is grandeur to our dust 

So near is God to man, 
When Duty whispers low, Tliou must, 

The youth replies, / can. 

The specific things which she urged the stu- 
dents to work for were those she had for many 
years been advocating at every opportunity; 
things within the ability of all. Said she : **If 
but a tithe of the students who go forth each 



MAEIA SANFORD 211 

year could carry with them the determination 
to do something worthy and do it with their 
might, what a glorious work would be done! 
Then the most obstinate skeptic would cease 
to doubt the value of the University and the 
most hard-fisted economist would no longer 
grudge it abundant resources. 

*^ First and foremost the student must be 
himself an example of sound, healthy living. 
His OAvn farm, his own store, his own school 
must be kept trim ; he must be diligent and suc- 
cessful in business, because no mere shallow 
enthusiast can be a leader of men. It is always 
what a man is that reinforces a hundred fold 
what he says and does. But he must be awake 
to opportunities to help his neighbors, ready 
to lend a hand to every good work. He must 
believe in his neighbors, see the possibilities 
that lie dormant in them ; nothing is so deaden- 
ing as the conviction that nobody but one's self 
has any desire for progress. Each one must 
work out his own problem; the opportunities 
in no two places are the same, but in a large city 
or small village there are always opportunities 
for the willing. Let me speak of a few out of 
many things that may be done. The ambition 
to make every town beautiful has already found 
a lodgment in many minds, and new plans and 



212 MARIA SANFORD 

helpful old ones will be gladly welcomed ; shady 
roadsides stretching out from every town, the 
changing of unsightly places into lovely nooks, 
and the utilization of all natural objects of 
beauty, these are some of the means by which 
taste may make Minnesota the most charming 
of all places to live in. 

' ' If there is no public library no stone should 
be left unturned until by means of Mr. Car- 
negie 's generous provisions one has been estab- 
lished. To secure the right kind of books, so 
that the Library may be a real educational in- 
fluence and not merely a means of amusement, 
will demand the efforts of an educated man or 
woman; and still more to put into the library 
pictures that shall be instructive in the history 
of art. There is, all over the state, an awak- 
ening interest in art ; and to cultivate this taste 
is to open for the many a rich mine of enjoy- 
ment, and possibly to develop in the few real 
artistic gifts." 

The awakening interest in art to which she 
referred had largety come about through her 
art lectures in the University and in other parts 
of the state. Her last suggestion was so novel, 
and felt to be so timely, that it has been put into 
practice in a number of Minnesota towns ; that 
is, some means by which young men after 



MARIA SANFORD 213 

graduation can continue their instruction. 
Her advice was as follows: **To establish in 
every town some systematic instruction for 
adults is a much needed work. Large sums 
are freely spent to educate the children, but 
as soon as the young people leave school they 
are considered able to provide their own men- 
tal food; and the consequence is, most of them 
starve. I regard this as the great weakness of 
our educational system. The women's clubs 
are in a measure filling up the gap ; but for the 
young men who have completed high school or 
college there is in most towns no influence what- 
ever outside of their home to stimulate their 
intellectual life ; a hundred hands are ready to 
drag them down, but none are stretched out to 
keep them up. The recent provision of the 
University for lecture courses is an important 
step in the right direction; but the value of 
these lectures will be increased ten fold if in 
the towns there are organized classes to study 
and discuss the subjects presented. The old- 
fashioned lyceum was a strong educational 
force; we need something today to supply its 
place. Let the graduate, wherever he makes 
his home, plan to do something in whatever line 
he is best fitted to bring his University training 
to bear directly upon the intellectual life of his 



214 MARIA SANFORD 

town. A dramatic club, a reading circle, a 
band, a musical society, — each and all are up- 
lifting.'' 

She closed by asserting her belief in the 
essential religious influence for righteousness 
of the University, even though no creed or 
dogma is taught. **The narrow zeal of the 
bigot," said she, ^*may declare that the Uni- 
versity is irreligious; but any one who with 
jealous care and watchfulness for the interests 
of religion has studied for years the influence 
of the University upon the student body and 
upon the state must emphatically deny the 
charge. If students sometimes give up tenets 
which they held before, they learn to reverence 
* their conscience as their king' and to accept 
*true religion and undefiled,' Ho deal justly, 
love mercy, and walk humbly before God. ' ' ' 

During that commencement week telegrams, 
congratulations and letters poured in from all 
over the world. One document of great im- 
portance was a parchment presented by the 
alumni: '*We, the alumni of the University of 
Minnesota, thank you for what you have been 
to your students. We recall your eloquence, 
humor, deep thrilling tones, and the earnestness 
and vigor of your teachings. The students of 
twenty-nine college classes acknowledge with 



MARIA SANFORD 215 

gratitude the debt they owe your kindness and 
wisdom. 

* * We thank you for the part you have played 
in the up-building of the University. You came 
to it when it was small and struggling. Your 
strength has gone into its growth and your free, 
magnanimous spirit has been wrought into its 
substance. For what you have meant to the 
University the Alumni honor you. 

**We thank you for your service to the State 
of Minnesota. By your lectures you have car- 
ried inspiration to thousands who have never 
seen the University. In all the state no woman 
is so widely known and so generally loved and 
respected. For your wide-spread and noble 
influence the Alumni will always revere you. 

**In their appreciation of your wonderful 
personality and the great value of your work 
the Alumni of the University of Minnesota pre- 
sent to you this token of their love and grati- 
tude.'' 

A shorter document which gave Professor 
Sanf ord great pleasure was sent by the Secre- 
tary of the Board of Regents the week after 
commencement informing her that by a vote of 
the Board she had been made Emeritus Pro- 
fessor of Rhetoric. 

Miss Sanf ord was in active service long after 



216 MAEIA SANFORD 

the emphasis began to be laid upon research 
as a necessary part of the work of a college 
professor. As she was well known not to be 
a research scholar the editorial tribute in the 
Alumni Weekly at the time of her retirement 
was especially apt. *^We have no quarrel with 
the *new' college professor who looks upon his 
students as a * necessary evil/ desiring to de- 
vote his whole time to investigation. Such 
professors have their place to fill in the econom- 
ics of the modern educational world, but we 
are glad of an opportunity to honor the teacher 
and to point out such notable examples of suc- 
cessful teaching as those of the three profess- 
ors who sever their connection with the Uni- 
versity at this time. 

''Dean Jones, Dr. Brooks and Professor San- 
ford have all won their honors as teachers 
rather than as investigators. We do not know 
that any one of the three has ever made a 'con- 
tribution to knowledge' in the ordinary accept- 
ance of that term, but we do know that they 
have all left their impress upon the lives of 
thousands of men and women, and have given 
those men and women higher and nobler ideals 
of life and its meaning as well as an ambition to 
attain. They may have discovered no new laws 
but they have so applied laws as old as the 



MARIA SANFORD 217 

world as to have made the world better for their 
having been in it. We honor these professors 
with their old-fashioned ideas of the dignity of 
teaching, and we are free to say that we would 
rather have their records than the honor of dis- 
covering the most abstruse law that has to do 
with mere things. We are glad to do honor to 
those who, in these days, dare to lay emphasis 
upon mere teaching.'' 



CHAPTER VIII 
*^ GENERAL HELPING '^ 

Only one as intensely devoted to a life work 
as was Maria Sanford can understand what a 
wrench it was for her, in full vigor of mind and 
body, as she felt herself, to give up her class- 
room work. At seventy-two years of age she 
had no desire to rest quietly at home as her 
pension would have enabled her to do. In some 
way she determined to be of service as long as 
her strength lasted. 

The people of Minnesota felt that she still 
belonged to the public, and they believed she 
would be willing to continue to serve it. The 
Minnesota Federation of Women's Clubs, feel- 
ing that Miss Sanford would be of great value 
to young people, asked the Regents of the Uni- 
versity of Minnesota that, if possible. Miss San- 
ford might be continued for at least one addi- 
tional year in the same capacity as before. If 
that were impossible they asked the Regents to 
consider and formulate a plan or method under 
which the influence and attainments of Pro- 

218 



MARIA SANFORD 219 

fessor Sanford might be made available to the 
high schools of Minnesota in a series of Bib- 
lical or other classical lectures, to be known as 
a University Extension Course. Editorials in 
the papers all over the state, with one exception, 
were of the most laudatory character. One 
writer expressed the hope that the Regents of 
the University would make suitable arrange- 
ments for Miss Sanford to continue her use- 
fulness educationally in Minnesota as long as 
her strength permitted. He considered that she 
would accomplish more for the public good in 
the capacity of a lecturer than would any trav- 
eling library ; because a gifted woman like Miss 
Sanford was capable of exerting a stronger 
influence than a mere book. He concluded by 
saying that she should be passed around for 
the good of all communities that were capable 
of appreciating her as a brilliant woman phi- 
losopher, and the sage of Minnesota. 

Miss Sanford herself was undecided for a 
time just how to be of most service. One old 
time friend in another state urged that she 
should write stories for young people in which 
her own high ideals of life and living would be 
inculcated. Miss Sanford made some attempts 
in that direction but was not satisfied with the 
results. Another old friend in a distant state 



220 MARIA SANFOED 

asked her to have her lectures collected and 
published in a volume. There is no indication 
that she ever considered the advisability of 
doing this. 

The first work that presented itself was a call 
to Atlanta, Georgia, to make an address at the 
dedicatory services of the First Congregational 
church, the largest negro church in Atlanta. 
Miss Sanford not only lectured in this institu- 
tional church but solicited five hundred dollars 
for its work so that she was made a patron of 
the church; and her name now appears on the 
glass door of a room next to that of Theodore 
Roosevelt, who was another patron. The min- 
ister of the church arranged for Miss Sanford 
to speak in a dozen other churches, schools and 
universities for colored people in Tennessee, 
Florida, North Carolina and Washington. So 
popular were her talks that she was asked to 
all of the places again. 

The next year Miss Sanford was still actively 
interested in the colored schools and churches 
where she had lectured. President Taft that 
year wrote a recommendation urging people to 
give to funds which Miss Sanford was solicit- 
ing for a normal and industrial institute con- 
ducted for colored people in Georgia. The prin- 
cipal of the school had written to Miss Sanford, 



MARIA SANFORD 221 

**If you could raise fifteen thousand dollars 
for us we would raise an additional amount to 
secure equipment and teachers' salaries, but if 
you would prefer to give the amount to the city 
I feel sure that the white and colored people 
would give the other five thousand dollars." 
Such faith did the people have in a woman past 
seventy-three years of age, a woman known to 
have not a cent of money of her o\\m ! She con- 
tinued for fiYe years longer to visit the south- 
ern institutions, and in a six weeks ' tour of the 
eastern and southeastern states in 1914, when 
she was seventy-eight years of age, she gave 
twenty-five lectures; the southern lectures, as 
before, were arranged by the minister of the 
church in Atlanta where she had first spoken. 
After the trip that year Miss Sanford wrote 
to the President of the United States, request- 
ing him to use his personal influence in a mat- 
ter which threatened that spirit of unity and 
mutual respect which all earnestly desire to 
see prevail. This was to prevent the rekindling 
of sectional feeling which must result from the 
tendency of the present if not wisely controlled. 
She referred to the disposition to change the 
present status of the negro in Washington, and 
mentioned the fact that the north for many 
years had wisely abstained from interference 



222 MARIA SANFORD 

with conditions in the south. '* Should not,'' 
she said, **a delicate sense of courtesy impel 
the chivalric spirit of the south to decide that, 
in so far as our nation's capital is concerned, 
they will respect the convictions of the north?" 
Another interesting experience for Miss San- 
ford was the invitation in 1910 to give the me- 
morial address to the G. A. R. It was noted 
that she was the first woman to be invited to 
address the Grand Army of the Republic. On 
this occasion she made a proposal that the vet- 
erans of the North and the South together 
should unite in a campaign for world peace, 
and that Theodore Roosevelt should be com- 
missioned to lead the movement on behalf of 
the United States. Resolutions were offered 
that day recommending that her suggestion be 
carried out. Ex-Governor Van Sant of Minne- 
sota, commander-in-chief of the G. A. R., was 
asked to bring the resolution to the attention 
of comrades at the national encampment of vet- 
erans at Atlantic City the following Septem- 
ber. Letters were written to Miss Sanford by 
commanders of G. A. R. posts in different parts 
of the state, thanking her for her timely, wise 
and patriotic words and suggestions. One in- 
teresting letter was sent to her from New York 
enclosing a clipping from the New York Times 



MARIA SANFORD 223 

in reference to her address to the G. A. R. posts 
in Minneapolis. The writer said that he had 
spoken on the same topic in New York on that 
day. 

The wish to associate her name permanently 
with the women of the University was ex- 
pressed the year after Miss Sanford's retire- 
ment, when the first dormitory for University 
girls was bnilt upon the campus and named in 
her honor Sanford Hall. The dean of women 
wrote to her ^*You have never been a believer 
in dormitories, I know. I hope that your disbe- 
lief is not so strong as to make you reluctant 
to see your name upon the face of one.'' 

Miss Sanford now began to be made a mem- 
ber of many clubs, not only in Minneapolis but 
in other parts of the state. Early in 1910 she 
was made a life member of the Rambler's club, 
which she always thereafter visited whenever 
she was able. One of her last lectures was be- 
fore this club; she was so feeble that she had 
to lie down after speaking. It was the Ram- 
bler's which first suggested the Sanford schol- 
arship which the State Federation of Women's 
Clubs started the same year. This was a re- 
volving loan fund for Senior girls, preferably, 
with a maximum loan of two hundred fifty dol- 
lars, to be paid in three years. So promptly 



224 MARIA SANFORD 

did the students discharge their obligations 
that the treasurer in her tenth annual report 
said that the young women * ^ seemed to partake 
of the energy and spirit of her for whom the 
scholarship was named." The Ladies' Shakes- 
peare Club, at their nineteenth annual banquet, 
gave honor to Miss Sanford as their chief guest 
and addressed her in a toast entitled *^Our Her- 
oine, Maria Sanford, her gentle spirit of devo- 
tion, self-sacrifice and culture. Here's to the 
magic influence that has been an uplift to thou- 
sands and has touched the lives of each one of 
us in so many countless ways. Here's to our 
heroine — the best known and best loved woman 
in our state, who is so deservedly styled the 
preeminent woman philosopher and sage of 
Minnesota." It was this club, also, which in 
1921 presented a beautiful picture of Miss San- 
ford to the State Historical Society. 

Though she was so greatly interested in the 
women's clubs of the state, she had not yet de- 
cided that her future work was to be largely 
lecturing. When she was asked by friends 
what kind of work she was doing she always 
answered that it was '* general helping." As 
in her earlier days so now she was at heart a 
pioneer. Few people at her age would have 
dreamed of going to live in a new country ; but 



MARIA SANFORD 225 

Miss Sanford became interested through 
friends and former students in a scheme for 
clearing wild land in Florida. She thought the 
warm climate of that state would be an excel- 
lent place for the family of the niece who was a 
missionary in Smyrna to live after they retired 
from the missionary field. Some people told 
Miss Sanford that she could make fifteen hun- 
dred dollars an acre on celery plants in Florida. 
She decided late in 1910 to go down to the west 
coast to an out of the way place, buy some land 
and clear it. For a beginning she planned to 
take some small celery plants. The weather 
was so cold that she had to thaw out frozen 
dirt, sift it and make it suitable for planting 
celery seeds. She finally started out with some 
fine plants, which she carried in her hands all 
the way from Minneapolis to Florida. Her 
only companion on the lon,g journey was a 
young boy of fifteen, a grand nephew. As 
Miss Sanford knew that she was going to a 
place far from stores and railways she carried 
with her also a hoe, a spade and a rake ; and set 
out, a woman in her seventy-fourth year, laden 
as few young people would msh to be. In the 
station in Chicago she had the misfortune to 
have her purse and her ticket stolen from her, 
but the agents were kind enough to present her 

15 



226 MAEIA SANFOED 

with a ticket to her destination. When they 
reached Florida a man who had formerly lived 
in Minneapolis drove them at night from the 
toA\ai where they left the train to the place 
selected in Largo ; and as he left Miss Sanf ord 
with the pines for her only shelter, he was so 
awed that he drove away with tears in his eyes. 

Miss Sanf ord and her yonng companion found 
nothing bnt pine and wild palmetto scrub on 
the thirty-five acres of land which she had 
bought. There was no sign of near neighbors. 
They had a tent which they put up and in which 
they lived for two months with a floor three feet 
above the ground to keep out snakes and in- 
sects. A heavy rain and mndstorm one night 
left them without shelter, and Miss Sanford 
went a mile to the one-room shack of her near- 
est neighbor, where they had to sit up all night. 
Their Jersey cow wandered off during the 
storm and the boy hunted two days before he 
found it twelve miles off. Immediately after- 
ward she began to build a one-room shack on 
her o^Yn place, insuring for herself a dry shel- 
ter. A sleeping tent for the boy and another 
for storage made up their home. 

One of the family of missionaries in whose 
interest she had thought of going to Florida 
wrote to her: **Your experiences are amusing. 



MARIA SANFORD 227 

if the bites and sunburn were not such stern 
realities. A picture of you and Walter tryin,g 
to milk a cow would, in common parlance, be 
^fetching.' I wonder what the cow thought of 
it 1 By now you and Walter are no doubt quali- 
fied dairy maids. I think you both are doing 
splendidly. Two acres cleared in less than six 
days is good work, but surely King Sol is 
shocked at your early hours. ' ' 

In addition to the cow they had some chick- 
ens. These they fed so liberally that the fowls 
never gave them any eggs. As they were five 
miles from the nearest to^\m, and as none of the 
people anywhere near them had horse or car- 
riage, Miss Sanford bought also a wagon and a 
driving horse, and carried supplies for her 
neighbors as well as for herself from market. 
She knew so little of horses that she bought at 
a high price a very inferior animal which was 
unable to work, and almost unable to travel to 
and from town. 

The celery plants she had carried so care- 
fully to Florida did not grow because condi- 
tions were not risfht in that place for celery. 
Miss Sanford, nothing daunted, set out cabbage 
plants and tomatoes. A neighbor who had 
been a truck gardener in the west helped them 
at night because it was too hot to work in the 



228 MARIA SANFORD 

day time. Light for their work came from a 
bonfire made of dried pahnetto leaves. Miss 
Sanford thought that as the palmetto scrub 
was not very tall it would be easy to clear it 
from the land, and that she could be of material 
assistance. She began with her own hands to 
try to dig it up ; but the Florida days were too 
hot, and the roots of the palmetto reached too 
far down for her to make much headway in the 
day time. So she rested a part of the day and 
dug palmetto scrub by moonlight. 

She did not succeed in clearing the land very 
rapidly ; and after a time, leaving the wild land 
for stronger hands, she went up to Washington 
to deliver some lectures. She also wished to 
see if a federal anti-fight bill could be intro- 
duced into Congress. She had been urged to 
undertake this work by friends in Minneapolis 
who believed that she would make the best 
leader in a movement aimed primarily to pre- 
vent the sending of ** fight films" around the 
world, as a syndicate was planning at that time 
to do. Of the results of this effort she wrote 
to a friend in Minneapolis, **My errand here 
has been, as I feared it might be, fruitless. I 
should not, however, have been satisfied not to 
make the attempt. I have no sympathy with 
people who bewail wrong and say so and so 



MARIA SANFORD 229 

ought to be done but never lift a hand to do it. 
Only after we have tried and failed have we a 
right to cease our effort, and not always even 
then. I am not entirely sure that I am through 
with this business, but for the present there is 
nothing I can do. There is a bill Avhich has 
been referred to the committee on interstate 
commerce, the object of which is to stop prize 
fights. The chairman of that committee told 
me that they could not possibly consider it in 
several weeks, other bills having precedence of 
it. This, of course, means nothing will be done 
this session. I am not sorry I came, though I 
could ill afford either the time or the money; 
but I should have been ashamed of myself not 
to come, feeling as I did that it Avas my duty. ' ' 

While she was in Washington Miss Sanford 
kept in close touch by correspondence mth what 
was going on on her place at Largo, and wrote 
to friends in Minneapolis that she was home- 
sick to get back, ^* because, '^ she said, ^*this is 
the time to plan for the sprin,g crop, and I am 
anxious to be there to get things well started. 
I have enjoyed the life on the farm and the 
freedom and quiet of that new country. I am 
not sure how long it would be attractive to me 
but it has not yet lost its charm. ^' 

"WHien Miss Sanford returned to Largo, how- 



230 MARIA SANFORD 

ever, she found that worms had eaten her cab- 
bage plants. The tomatoes were in fine condi- 
tion but she was unable to market them. Her 
enthusiasm cooled considerably and she said 
to herself, ^*A woman who can thrill an audi- 
ence as you can has no business to raise the 
best cabbages in the world. ' ' And she started 
forthwith on her return trip to Minneapolis, 
leaving the land to be cleared, and ten acres in 
orange and grapefruit trees to be set out and 
cared for by the man who had helped her be- 
fore. She left in Florida her live-stock and all 
her implements, and closed the house. She 
sold her wagon to the man who looked after her 
place; but the horse, as he wrote to her after 
her return, was too weak to work or even to 
drive. That was therefore a complete loss. 
A year later the barn burned. 

Miss Sanford., after her return, looked after 
the place for some years, keeping up a constant 
correspondence with the bank and with differ- 
ent people who were hired to care for the land. 
One overseer did not take the pains he should 
in cultivating the grove, and caused extra ex- 
pense for renewing blighted trees and planting 
others in their places. Part of the land had 
to be drained. Then a fence had to be built to 
keep out the cattle of some people who moved 



MAEIA SANFORD 231 

near. But the land was still so wet that the 
fence posts soon rotted and the cattle broke in 
and destroyed many of the young trees. Miss 
Sanford, however, had too much of the pioneer 
spirit to be discouraged; and kept on, writing 
cheerful letters to the man who was taking care 
of her property, and spending for a consider- 
able time, as she estimated, fifteen dollars a 
month on an avera,ge for the care of the place. 
The man who was looking after the land came 
to regard Miss Sanford as the best friend of 
himself and his family. His own venture was 
not successful, and Miss Sanford lent him 
money. After some years he moved to the Pa- 
cific coast. The man who next took the place 
wrote that pine roots needed to be dug up. She 
had removed only palmetto. The fruit trees 
needed to be set higher. Fifty trees had died. 
Miss Sanford sent money ; but he needed more, 
as he wanted to clear more land. The care 
taker sent her an itemized monthly account of 
work done and money needed, but at the end of 
another year Miss Sanford was discouraged 
and finally exchanged both her own land and 
that of her niece in Largo for property in the 
town of Lakeland, Florida. It is some satisfac- 



232 MARIA SANFORD 

tion to know that the missionary niece, her hus- 
band and several of her children are enjoying 
their home in Florida today. 

As soon as women ^s clubs realized that Miss 
Sanford was free to come as often as they could 
afford to have her, she was in request for more 
lectures than she could possibly give. A 
woman's club of about twenty members in the 
northern part of Minnesota was so eager for 
her presence that they had her on their pro- 
gram once a month for six months. In the even- 
ings each time she visited this city she lectured 
under the auspices of the club at church; her 
lectures to the club were on literary topics and 
the evening lectures on art subjects. 

In March, 1912, President Vincent planned a 
new kind of University Extension to carry the 
University to the people. The schedule provided 
for a week's program in twenty-four small cities 
of the state, with popular applied education in 
every department through the medium of a staff 
of seventy-five lecturers, educators, demonstrat- 
ors and entertainers. Miss Sanford was asked 
to appear on Art and Literature Day twice 
each day of the week in six towns which were 
in easy communication with each other. In the 
mornings she gave her popular talk on Liter- 



MAMA SANFOBD 233 

ature for Everybody and in the afternoons she 
gave a reading from one of her favorite poets. 

Two of her favorite poems were sure to be 
given on these occasions. Kipling's Mother 
o' Mine she recited with such feeling that one 
woman said to her, **I do not see how one who 
has never been a mother can possibly recite that 
poem as you do.'' Lowell's My Love she be- 
lieved everyone should know. One stanza of 
that poem has been quoted again and again as 
applicable to her. 

She doeth little kindnesses 

Which most leave undone, or despise; 
For naught that sets one heart at ease, 
And giveth happiness or peace, 

Is low esteemed in her eyes. 

Her favorite passage of all English poetry 
was from Browning's Eabbi Ben Ezra. Who 
that knew Miss Sanford could fail to associate 
her with that poem on old age! Her favorite 
lines were, 

As the bird wings and sings, 

Let us cry, ^ ^ All good things 

Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now. 

Than flesh helps soul." 

In going from place to place her associates 
remarked that she was more active and ener- 



234 MARIA SANFORD 

getic than most of the young people. She was 
the only person of the entire company who never 
rode in a sleeping car on the night jonrneys. 
Her efforts were so much appreciated that the 
President wrote her a personal letter for her 
disinterested service, Avhich was a distinct con- 
tribution to the idea that he wished to make 
widespread in the state — that the University 
was interested not alone in the students who 
resorted to it but in all the people of the Com- 
monwealth. 

This short period of freedom had resulted in 
making Miss Sanford better known outside the 
state than was possible while she was teach- 
ing. But perhaps the one occasion which made 
her kno\^Ti to the greatest number of women all 
over the country was the address she gave at 
the National Federation of Women's Clubs at 
San Francisco in 1912. A former student of 
Miss Sanford 's suggested to the women of the 
Minneapolis Federation that Miss Sanford 
should be asked to make an address at the 
biennial. The matter was taken up with the 
proper authorities and Miss Sanford received 
an invitation to make an address. She had at 
that time been made an honorary member of 
the State Federation of Women's Clubs, the 
first and only honorary member. It was found 



MARIA SANFORD 235 

that she belonged to every club in the state, and 
the women of the state by contributing twenty- 
five cents apiece raised money to defray all her 
expenses. Twenty members of the Woman's 
Club of Minneapolis presented the invitation, 
written as follows: 

**You must guess that twenty women de- 
scending upon you this bitter cold day — so soon 
after your return from a fatiguing trip — ^must 
have something very much at heart. 

*^You have doubtless heard that there is to 
be in San Francisco this summer the most nota- 
ble gathering of American Womanhood, called 
together by the National Federation of Wom- 
en's Clubs. We feel that you, representing the 
most distinguished women of our city, should 
be among them, and we, representing the club 
women of our city, have come to ask you to 
honor us by going as our guest to San Fran- 
Cisco. We say guest and not representative, 
feeling that thus you will be relieved of the 
burdens of representation, and yet open to all 
the social gifts and courtesies of the Federa- 
tion. 

**We might mention many reasons for our 
special hope that you will accept our request 
with favor, but Ave mil mention but two. A few 
days ago the wife of the president of one of our 



236 MARIA SANFORD 

largest banks said, * There is no name in the 
city that commands more honor and respect 
from my husband than the name of Maria San- 
ford, because at great personal sacrifice she 
stood by a debt of honor which most men would 
have felt quite justified in repudiating. ' 

*'For this reason, and because in a long pub- 
lic and private life you have stood every test, 
and been true to the highest ideals of woman- 
hood, we want you to do us this honor. The 
wings Svherewith you are to fly withal' have 
been provided, and it only remains for us to 
take to our waiting clubs your favorable answer, 
that the final details may be completed. 

**We have the honor to wait, many of us 
your former pupils, all of us your loving 
friends, for the answer we hope to carry with 
us/' 

One club presented her with a beautiful gray 
silk dress for festive occasions and another 
gave a rose point lace collar to go with the silk. 
Miss Sanford's devoted niece made her a beau- 
tiful dress of this material. She made a tri- 
umphal journey from Minneapolis to San Fran- 
cisco. Former students and friends in cities 
and to^\ms in every state through which she 
would pass were notified by one of the club of 
the date of her coming and she was urged to 



MARIA SANFORD 237 

lecture and to be the guest of students. Her 
heart was warmed and her pocket-book filled 
as a result of these chances to lecture. She still 
had need of all she could earn, because she still 
owed fifteen thousand dollars. 

The greatest event of the trip was the day of 
her address in San Francisco. She spoke on 
a subject which had been near her heart for 
many years, and on which she had spoken many 
times, The Value of Moral Power in the School- 
room. As the slight old lady rose before that 
great audience she was greeted by the silent 
tribute of the Chautauqua salute. A San Fran- 
cisco reporter, in referring to this address, 
wrote: ^^Seventy-five and active; seventy-five 
with a voice that has the power and resonance 
that moves thousands of young women to envy, 
seventy-five and able to move with enthusiastic 
admiration and devotion the immense audience 
of club women that packed the auditorium this 
morning ; such is the unique distinction of Pro- 
fessor Maria Sanford of the University of Min- 
nesota." A reporter for another paper said 
she made the most profound impression of any 
speaker at the biennial. One of her best known 
sentiments was expressed in this speech: *^At 
seventy-five my message to the world is : Let 
.every human being so bear himself that the 



238 MARIA SANFORD 

place where he stands is sacred ground. And 
I charge the old to teach the young the value of 
education, not as a means to wealth, but as a 
means to life/' Another, equally well known^ 
was repeated here : 

^^We would urge those who select either pri- 
mary teachers or college professors to look not 
to preparation only, but to power ; to remember 
that learning, forei,gn university degrees, skill 
in research, are not sufficient evidence of a 
teacher's fitness unless these are accompanied 
by a spirit and purpose which ennobles the 
life." 

Miss Sanford enjoyed every minute of her 
trip. She appeared at a special luncheon ar- 
ranged for her by club w^omen who were en- 
thusiastic about her address. Yet she refused 
an invitation to one great function, and went 
instead to speak to the women prisoners at San 
Quentin. When asked about it afterward she 
said, *^I tried to make it the best tall^ I had 
ever given." 

It was while she was at this biennial that Miss 
Sanford saw the success with which the Cali- 
fornia women had used the rights of suffrage 
and came out openly herself as a suffragist. 
From that time she lectured frequently for the 
cause and never hesitated to tell why she had 



MARIA SANFORD 239 

changed her point of view. Before her return 
to her home she spoke to the Woman's Club of 
Los Angeles. She told them that the women 
of the states without suffrage Avere w^atching 
California. She urged them not to form a 
woman's party, nor support a woman candidate 
just because she was a woman, but to vote for 
the highest principles. She reminded them 
that one unanswerable argument for equal suf- 
frage would be the voting woman's use of the 
ballot in the interest of social purity and home 
protection. She charged them to keep before 
them the better guardianship of home and 
family. j 

On her return home she was at once asked to 
accept a place on the legislative committee of 
the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Association, 
and asked to give Avhat free time she had from 
her lecture engagements outside the state, in 
which to make her presence felt in her home 
state. 

Some months later when she spoke on the 
same subject in Poughkeepsie, New York, she 
entitled her speech When the Sun Rises in 
the West. She remarked that she always had 
known some women were as able as some men, 
but had thought the ignorant vote would be bad, 
and also that women would lose their delicacv. 



240 MARIA SANFORD 

But her observation in California had taught 
her better. A year previously she had deliv- 
ered a lecture against suffrage. She had never 
been in sympathy with the plea that suffrage 
was a right; and when she joined the ranks of 
the suffragists she always emphasized her be- 
lief that it was an opportunity for service. She 
had come to see that women were called upon 
for public service ; that as the last century was 
one of invention, of material progress, this is 
one of social advancement; that imbecility, in- 
sanity, drunkenness, and poverty were the re- 
sult of conditions which might be improved; 
and that women were seeking a way to help 
their fellowmen by protection of childhood 
against severe labor conditions, by securing re- 
lief for the industrially oppressed, and by the 
suppression of the social evil. In her attempt 
at ** general helping'^ she had a hand in all 
these efforts. 

In the winter following the biennial at San 
Francisco the clubs belonging to the Minnesota 
State Federation in twelve of the larger cities 
of the state engaged Miss Sanford for a series 
of lectures, many of these as a direct result of 
the enthusiasm aroused by her address at San 
Francisco, although most of the clubs of the 
state had for many years been familiar with 



MARIA SANFOED 241 

Miss Sanford's work as a lecturer. That win- 
ter, shortly before her seventy- sixth birthday, 
Professor Sanford made eighteen addresses in 
ten days, and on her birthday she lectured 
twice. On that occasion she remarked con- 
cerning her health, ^*I was never better in my 
life. I know as time goes on that I have not 
long to work, and I want to be busy during the 
rest of my days. There is so much to be done 
in the world and such a loud call for those who 
by insight, by earnestness and by tact are fitted 
to do it well ; there is so much to be learned, so 
much to be discovered that will lift up and bless 
the world, that no one who has a skillful hand 
and a trained eye can afford to hold back from 
help." At an earlier time, in referring to her 
health, she said that long before Mrs. Eddy had 
been heard of she had laid down for herself 
the general principle that she must never plan 
or think about being in anything but good 
health. Her experience had convinced her that 
the habit of chronic illness unfitted many who 
might do better if they would cultivate a differ- 
ent attitude of mind. 

One of Miss Sanford 's favorite lectures, given 
many times, was entitled How to Make Home 
Happy. This lecture was full of homely wisdom, 
of anecdotes of her early years, and was eagerly 

16 



242 MARIA SANFORD 

listened to on all occasions. She believed that 
poor homes are the happiest, that thoughtful- 
ness for others, self-denial and willingness to 
give are found oftenest in homes of poverty. 
*^In ourselves,'' she said, ^Sve find the wealth 
that makes home. Ambition, contentment, thrift, 
health and religion are necessary to a happy 
home. Thrift is the most important and the 
most often neglected. ' ' 

In addition to the lectures given in Minne- 
sota Miss Sanford was in request in California 
and all through the western states. One lec- 
ture given to high school students entitled Pock- 
ets of Gold made such an impression upon the 
boys and girls that they gave her a pin made 
from a nugget of gold found in the county. The 
students, teachers and principals of the high 
school presented her with an engraved scroll in 
memory of their pleasure and the value they had 
received from her lecture. 

On her return journey she spoke in Port- 
land, Oregon, before a congress of mothers on 
a subject which had recently become of public 
interest, that of sex hygiene for girls. This 
was a new departure for Miss Sanford, but with 
her usual sanity, courage and sincerity, she told 
the mothers that she believed this subject 
should be taught, but she did not believe in 



MARIA SANFORD 243 

having it taught in school. She was of the 
opinion that mothers should give their girls 
the necessary instruction, and that very early. 
On her return to Minnesota that summer Miss 
Sanford spoke again on sex hygiene, and one 
friend in writing to her said, ^*I have heard 
nothing but favorable comment on your sex 
talk. One woman who, I know, has evaded her 
duty and even been untruthful to her three 
children, was thoroughly impressed. I was 
eager to hear her opinion on the talk. She is 
the aristocratic, unsympathetic type, and I was 
fearful that even you could not convince her; 
but you did." 

She was in demand for high school com- 
mencement addresses in Minnesota. She spoke 
before the Women's Press Club in New York 
City. She lectured for the endowTnent fund of 
the General Federation of Women's Clubs. 
Everywhere her humor was remarked with 
keen appreciation. Even on the subject of cre- 
mation, which she advocated for many years, 
she had a favorite humorous story. Believing 
that cremation was the only hygienic method in 
large cities of disposing of the dead, she ex- 
pressed her views as she did on other unpop- 
ular subjects, whenever she found an occasion. 
But she never made the topic seem gruesome. 



244 MABIA SANFORD 

and often repeated the remark made by an un- 
married woman to a widow whose third hus- 
band had recently been cremated: ^^I never 
had a husband, and you have had husbands to 
burn. ' ' 

On the subject of Our Duty to the Degraded 
Classes she had some original and vigorously 
expressed opinions. She believed that habitual 
paupers as well as criminals are defectives 
whom society may deprive of their freedom as 
it does the insane. Pauperism is not, as we 
think, a necessary evil, but a foul disease. Even 
the worthy poor should not receive alms, but 
should work or in some way give an equivalent 
for what they receive. Pauperism should not 
be tampered with, but stamped out. It is not 
an accident, but a disease which can be con- 
trolled and prevented. 

For many of her lectures at this period, as 
had been the case for many years, she received 
no money. The year 1914, five years after her 
retirement, was financially the most profitable ; 
in this year she received more than two thou- 
sand dollars from her public speaking. 

In the summer of 1915 Miss Sanford made an 
extended Avestern trip, lecturing in northern 
Montana, and for the first time longing for 
home she w^rote to her niece in Minneapolis; 



MARIA SANFORD 245 

^*How glad I am that I am engaged in Minne- 
apolis for September. It will be so delightful 
to be at home, and so good to be earning the 
money I need.'' Her gratitude to her niece 
found expression when she said, **I am indeed 
happy that you enjoy our home, and more 
thankful than I can tell that I have you to make 
it home for me. I hope we may have some de- 
lightful years together yet." On this trip she 
wrote almost daily to her niece, and in every 
letter repeated her desire to be at home. In 
one letter she began by saying, *^It is 5:30 in 
the morning and I am all ready for the day's 
work. Of course I have not had breakfast yet, 
but I have had my bath in this delicious, soft, 
clear water. All the work I have to do is done, 
and with warm clothing on I am sitting outside 
my cabin door writing. It is glorious sitting 
here and seeing the sunlight creep down on the 
mountains and to feel this life-giving air, I am 
sure these weeks are being a great benefit to 
me. I feel now so well and sound and so thank- 
ful for this vigor. I am alone in my cabin now 
and I enjoy it hugely. You had better send me 
more papers here. We get no news at all, and 
I leave the papers when I have read them in 
the schoolroom where the girls can see them." 
A snap shot of her here standing before her 



246 MARIA SANFORD 

log cabin shows the vitality of a woman half 
her age. Another surprising photograph shows 
her in a mountain clearing seated astride a 
pony. She has on a cowboy hat, and has a ban- 
danna handkerchief knotted around her neck. 
Her attitude indicates that she expects to start 
at once on a morning journey. Alert and eager, 
she seems keenly pleased at the prospect. She 
had left the railroad and journe^^ed over the 
roughest of stage roads thirty-five miles into 
the wilderness to lecture to a camp of normal 
school students. For two weeks she spoke to 
them three times a day. Just at twilight each 
evening a big bon-fire was started, and the 
whole community gathered around it while Pro- 
fessor Sanford repeated some of her favorite 
poems. 

For a woman nearing eighty years of age the 
strenuous travelling she describes in her let- 
ters is marvelous: ^^It was a queer jaunt up 
here from Glendive. I left there at seven in 
the morning and got here after six at night. I 
rode a little way, then changed cars, or rather 
waited at the station to change, then went on a 
little ways further and changed again; and so 
on four times." "Within a week Miss Sanford 
was writing from another town in Montana: 
**My work here is somewhat strenuous but very 




< 



MARIA SANFORD 247 

satisfactory. Everybody is so much pleased! 
The people of the town croAvd in every after- 
noon to hear. This evening I am to give a 
lecture for them. Sunday I am to take part of 
the service , and Tuesday afternoon at four 

'clock I am to speak to the mothers. They pay 
me for this evening but not for Tuesday. They 
said they should be so glad to have the talk to 
the mothers, it was so much needed. So I told 
them I w^ould give them the talk Tuesday after- 
noon free.'' 

On leaving this town Miss Sanford wrote to 
her niece: **I may go to LewistoAvn. To go 
there I change at Bainville, then change again 
at Havre at 2:00 A. M., leave Havre at 4:40 
A. M., and reach Lewistown at 7:30 P. M. I 
do not earn much by going there, but I occupy 
vacant days and get my fare, which counts, and 

1 had rather be at work than idle. ' ' Again her 
longing to be at home is expressed a few days 
later in a letter to the same niece: ** Another 
Monday morning, and I am beginning the last 
full week before I go home. I am wondering 
how it would seem to me if I could stay at home 
and not be going away all the time. I feel sure 
I should enjoy it if I were busy and you were 
there. ... I am so thankful for my health 
and strength. I shall need it all when I come 



248 MARIA SANFORD 

to the Minneapolis campaign. That will be 
hard, I know, but I am more than glad to be in 
it/' 

As the month of August drew to a close Miss 
Sanford's longing increased. From Havre she 
wrote, *^I am in a hurry to see you. It is only 
one week from tonight that I shall be at home, 
I hope ... I am beginning to feel a lit- 
tle easier about my affairs. I have still a lot 
to pay, but it is good to be home, and that work 
in Minneapolis will help. It looks now as if by 
next May I should be where I need not worry. 
I will hope for freedom — not quite from debt, 
but from anxiety.'' A day or two later she 
writes again to her niece, **I had another de- 
lightful surprise yesterday in getting your let- 
ter. I had not expected to get any letters here 
and it seemed such a long time not to hear from 
you, but these two letters make it short. Soon 
now I shall be at home ... I have to go 
the same round about way I came. It doesn't 
matter. I am feeling so well and strong I shall 
not mind the waits. The only one I really dread 
is at Glendive. I get there at 4 :40 P. M. and 
stay until 2 :00 A. M., and the station is swarm- 
ing with flies. When I came on I Avent outdoors 
and lay on a truck. It was a warm night. ' ' 

After the Minneapolis campaign Miss San- 



MARIA SANFORD 249 

ford started on an eastern trip, stopping in 
Chicago, then going on to New York and later 
to Virginia. Her lodging to be at home grew. 
She still wrote to her niece almost daily and 
looked eagerly for letters from home. From 
Chicago she wrote, * ^ I am certainly a great deal 
better than I was a year ago, for I gave three 
addresses on Thursday and then came down 
here yesterday, and I do not feel tired at all. 
. . . Work is abont the best thing we get in 
this world except such loving friends as yon are 
to me. ' ' 

While she was in Chicago at this time she re- 
ceived a letter from the Minneapolis Journal 
asking her to go to Gary, Indiana, to visit the 
famous Gary schools. She wrote two letters 
for the Journal about this visit and advised the 
Minneapolis educators not to hurry to intro- 
duce the Gary system in Minneapolis. Al- 
though she found many of the novel features 
of the school good in theory, she did not feel 
that they always worked out satisfactorily. 
One of the greatest objections to the system, she 
felt, was the overworking of the teachers. 
Miss Sanford made such an impression on the 
school children of Gary that one small child 
wrote of her: **The little old-fashioned lady 
appeared quite suddenly in the big new-fash- 



250 MARIA SANFORD 

ioned school. Her quick light step was that of 
a girl. Her snow white hair, combed straight 
back from her forehead and coiled in a knot at 
the nape of her neck, was just the way our 
grandmothers do. Her black silk was just the 
kind we would want her to wear and just the 
kind our grandmothers wear today. As she 
stepped on the platform a breathless hush fell 
on the audience. Everyone wanted to hear the 
message that the little old-fashioned lady had 
to bring to us. When she spoke a look of sur- 
prise came into the faces of those in the audi- 
ence. Her voice was as clear as a bell. It rang 
through the room, strong and clear. Everyone 
was quiet from the fourth grade to the twelfth. 
She recited geometry propositions which she 
had studied sixty years ago. She told us — 0, 
so many things! Miss Sanford's talk is one 
that will be long remembered. The words of 
the little old-fashioned lady will echo and re- 
echo through the halls of the big new-fashioned 
school.'' 

Miss Sanford wrote to her niece about her 
visit: **I had a very nice time at Gary but it 
was pretty hard work, and I am feeling a little 
tired. They remembered me from last year 
and treated me royally. Yesterday I spoke 
five times, including a story I told to a class of 



MAMA SANFORD 251 

children." After her visit to Gary Miss San- 
ford wrote to her niece, ^'You can't tell how I 
look forward to next spring when what I earn 
will pull me out of trouble. I shall have to be 
careful and save ri^ght on, but I shall not have 
to worry as to how I am to meet necessary pay- 
ments nor to worry as to Avhat would be done 
if I should die." 

As she went on further east she continued 
to ride in day coaches and to have to change in 
the middle of the night. Although she Avas a 
pioneer woman and in many respects ahead of 
her time, in other ways she was a Puritan of 
the Puritans. She told some friends that it 
never seemed quite nice to her to go into a 
sleeper. She could curl up comfortably on the 
seat of a day coach and sleep mth her clothes 
on. She didn't like to undress in a railway 
train. From somewhere in New York Miss 
Sanford wrote to her niece, **I have had a very 
comfortable night. I had to change in Buffalo 
and wait from 2:30 to 4:30 A. M. That was 
the only unpleasant thing, but I stretched out 
in the station and slept for a while. I am all 
right now." 

After going south as far as Virginia she re- 
turned to her native state to rest a few days 
before filling lecture engagements on her re- 



252 MARIA SANFORD 

turn journey. On New Year's Day she was in 
Yalesville, Connecticut, staying with a cousin, 
and for the first time in many years relaxing 
somewhat and enjoying a pleasant visit. She 
left the house in the afternoon one day to go to 
the post office. There had been an ice storm 
and she had the misfortune to fall on the ice, 
dislocating her shoulder and injuring herself 
so severely that with difficulty she reached a 
doctor's office. An examination showed that 
there were no broken bones, but she had to be 
carried back to the house. The cousin urged 
her to go to bed, but Miss Sanf ord insisted that 
she must take the train that night for Troy, 
New York ; and in spite of the fact that she was 
unable to stand she insisted on travelling. 

She was put aboard the train, and when she 
reached Troy, still unable to walk, she was 
wheeled to the platform at the hall where she 
was to lecture. From there she went on to 
three other cities in New York, still unable to 
walk, and in this way she filled all her lecture 
engagements between New York and Minne- 
apolis. "When she reached home she was obliged 
to go to bed and unable to raise her hand to 
her mouth, yet in less than a week she was on 
her way to keep lecture engagements in Cali- 
fornia. Her niece packed her trunk, friends 



MARIA SANFOED 253 

took her to the train. No one knows how she 
was cared for on the road, but she reached her 
journey's end in California much better than 
when she left Minneapolis and never failed in 
a single engagement. 

Her niece, who was in doubt about the wis- 
dom of such a long journey was re-assured by 
the letter her aunt wrote at her first stopping 
place: **I reached here yesterday at 3:00 A. 
M. There had been landslides, which blocked 
the trains. We had to get out and walk about 
two long blocks through slush and mud, and 
once a trestle bridge on the ties. The men in 
charge were very kind and did all they could 
for us. They took charge of the valise, and 
they put me in charge of two Italians who led 
me, one on one side and the other on the other. 
I got along very well mth their help so far as 
my lameness was concerned, but you should 
have seen my dress. The mud on the right side 
was up at least four inches and spattered up a 
foot and a half all around. M^^ cloak was held 
up by the men's arms and so escaped. My 
shoes were all mud to the very top, hut ive got 
tlirougli and were thankful we were not in the 
river that was ragin,g by our side. My trunk 
did not come until this morning. When I got 
to the hotel I had a warm room with plenty of 



254 MARIA SANFORD 

hot water. I just put the bottom of my dress 
into the bowl and washed it through several 
waters and hung it on the radiator. Then I 
took a Avash cloth and washed my shoes and my 
rubbers and set them up to dry. It was four 
o'clock when I got them cleaned and I went to 
bed happy. I did so good a job of cleaning my 
clothes that by some more sponging I was 
decent for my lectures in the afternoon and 
evening. ' ' 

A week later, **I have given eleven lectures 
at Eureka and five at Areata. Oh, if they only 
fill my time so that I can get this load of debt 
off I shall be happy as a bird ! I count every 
day how much I have earned . . . Oh, how 
glad I shall be to get home ! But I want to get 
the work here and the money, and they all say 
I do them so much good. I have been delight- 
fully entertained, but I want to see you and be 
at home." 

Three days later from another town in Cali- 
fornia came the following: ** Yesterday morn- 
ing before I came here I was feeling so home- 
sick I could have cried. I had been comfort- 
able enough but I was disappointed about one 
town not taking a full course of my lectures, 
and I did not know whether any of the to^vns 
would do so, and I felt like giving up and com- 



MAEIA SANFORD 255 

ing home. But here the people are very en- 
thusiastic, and with these kind friends around 
me things look bright again." 

In spite of the strenuous traveling Miss San- 
ford gave lectures which were not required. 
From one town she wrote in February, * * I have 
arranged to speak twice tomorrow and to ad- 
dress the high school Monday. Of course this 
isn't my business. All I am strictly required 
to do is to give the lectures when they have 
planned for them, but if I can help I am glad, 
and then too I do some good by speaking . . . 
They thought that they could not possibly pay 
for a course this year, but I preached twice on 
Sunday and spoke in the schools three times 
yesterday, and they are so much pleased they 
are going to work hard to get a course. It is 
very pleasant to feel that people always like 
my work. 

"When I was dressed this morning about 
seven o'clock I felt the old impulse I used to 
feel to take a real run before breakfast in the 
open air. The rain had not begun and I had 
a nice walk. It is a good while since I have 
felt like doing this . . . Your good care 
while I was home helped to bring me out right. 
Nobody knows how thankful I am that I have 
you to care for me when I need it." 



256 MARIA SANFORD 

A month later from San Francisco Miss San- 
ford wrote to her niece, **I am trying hard to 
pay up my debts. I have been counting up, 
and if I do not have anything new to meet, I 
ought to have all but the mortgage on our house 
and my other house paid up by next January. 
I do want very much to pay that off. ' ' 

Her thought for others when she was sac- 
rificing herself was as generous as when she 
was young and strong. One unusual bit of 
thoughtfulness was sho^^^l in the following : ^*I 
don't like to be at a hotel where servants ex- 
pect tips unless money is provided for that; 
and I cannot afford to give it myself. I rather 
deny myself a meal than go where waiters ex- 
pect to be paid and give them nothing. I have 
done so many a time." 

About the fair in San Francisco she wrote: 
^*I intend to go to the fair. I grudge the dollar 
it will cost, but I think it hardly best to come 
home without ha\T.ng seen it at all.'' 

Miss Sanford's anxiety about her independ- 
ence was voiced in a letter to her niece later in 
the same year: **It seems to me dreadful to 
be old and not have assured means of support. 
I rather work and pinch all my life if only I 
could know I was provided for. It was this 
feeling which made me so troubled when I 



MAEIA SANFORD 257 

thought the Carnegie pension might not be 
paid. ... If one only has a small sum, 
but it is sure and lasts as long as one lives, it 
is protection against that dreadful thing, be- 
ing dependent. Saving and scrimping are not 
agreeable but they are heaven compared to 
that.'' 

Miss Sanford's two seasons of lectures in 
California in 1915 and 1916 were given in the 
extension department of the University of Cal- 
ifornia. The first season she gave single lectures 
from Berkeley to Los Angeles, travelling at 
night to keep her appointments. The next sea- 
son the manager, in order to conserve Miss San- 
ford 's strength, arranged to have her lecture 
a week in a place. It required some persua- 
sion to get the people to agree to have one lec- 
turer for so long a period. The manager said 
that in eight years of extension work there had 
never been another speaker who could be de- 
pended on to arouse keen interest and always 
give something worth while. The work in one 
place shows how she appealed to the interests 
of all classes. In Santa Cruz she lectured to 
the high school students on Shakespeare, and 
to the teachers on English ; at the men 's lunch- 
eons she spoke on patriotic subjects; in the 
afternoons she addressed the parents' and 

17 



258 MARIA SANFORD 

teachers' associations; Sundays she preached 
in the churches. She left the toAvn stimulated 
and revived, a wonderful achievement. 

She was straining every nerve at this time 
to get her debts paid by the middle of the year. 
She succeeded in her endeavor so well that on 
June 8, 1916, she made a memorandum : * * This 
seems my day of emancipation, the beginning of 
life — the life I have always longed to live, but 
I have been forced to work for a living. Yes- 
terday I went over my accounts, and while I 
still owe about four thousand dollars, it is all, 

except my note to Mrs. secured; so I 

need not worry about getting work, but I can 
work for others." 

To celebrate the great occasion Miss Sanford 
for the first time bought something for herself 
that she considered a luxury. She had always 
loved beautiful gloves but she never wore them. 
Slie had always loved beautiful lace but had 
never alloAved herself even a white ruching in 
her dress. She would have loved to dress in 
white but instead had always dressed in black. 
She always loved to take out from her dress 
pocket a fresh handkerchief, neatly folded, to 
be used to 'SA^pe dust from her hands, but she 
had never had all the handkerchiefs she wanted. 
She alwavs used men's handkerchiefs because 



MARIA SANFORD 259 

they were used only for her hands; and now 
when someone gave her thirty dollars and 
urged her to buy with it something for herself, 
she bought thirty men's linen handkerchiefs for 
a dollar apiece, and for once in her life had 
enough of something she wanted. Her hands, 
which were large, were compared by artists to 
Lincoln's. After her death Miss McKinstry 
painted a second portrait of her, selecting for 
her model a photograph which shows the beauty 
of her hand. Five portarits of her are known 
to have been painted. 

Miss Sanford planned every birthday to 
make some improvement. She chose for her 
seventy-fifth to wear white at sleeves and neck. 
Thereafter clerks in the best store in Minneap- 
olis took pains to keep for her boxes of ruching 
even when that article of dress was not in 
fashion. 



CHAPTER IX 

HARVEST 

In the fall of 1916 Miss Sanford received no- 
tice from the secretary of the Minneapolis 
Board of Education that one of the public 
schools was to be named in her honor. She was 
deeply appreciative and at once adopted the 
school, which, to her great delight, was in one 
of the newer parts of the city. True to her 
pioneering instinct she remarked many times 
that she was very glad the school which received 
her name was a small and struggling one. It 
consisted of four portables, and comprised only 
the first four grades. As soon as possible Miss 
Sanford visited the school, spoke to the chil- 
dren, and from that time on became their fairy 
godmother. At her first visit she gave to each 
grade a motto. To the first she gave the four 
B's: '^Be clean, be kind, be courteous, be 
true," the meaning of which was explained, 
word by word, by their teacher, and which was 
kept on the blackboard. The children memo- 
rized the motto and learned to write it. To the 
higher grades she gave to the boys, **I am going 
260 



MARIA SANFORD 261 

to be a fine, strong, noble man''; and to the 
girls, *^I am going to be a true, strong, beauti- 
ful woman.'' These were copied at stated inter- 
vals in their best hand writing and sent to Miss 
Sanford so that she could see the improvement 
in their penmanship. 

Because her eightieth birthday occurred in 
the year that this school was named for her, 
the children of each grade sent her a birthday 
gift. Each of the first grade sent a hand made 
birthday card, and letter. One said, ^^I hope 
you will have a good time. Christmas will be 
coming soon. I love you. How do you feel to- 
day! " One of the second grade, *^I wish you a 
happy birthday. I go to the nice little school 
that is named after you. We are very glad that 
you are coming to see us Wednesday." 
Another, ^^I should like to live to be as old as 
you and do as many lovely things for people." 
One of the third grade, **We would like to have 
you tell us about your school days and the chil- 
dren of that time. Our building is not as good 
as some of the buildings but we have the best 
play grounds in the city. We play in Farview 
Park. This is the highest grade in the school. 
We are the only children who have ink to use. 
We hope you will like our school." 

Every child in the school sent Miss Sanford 



262 MARIA SANFORD 

a birthday greeting, and the principal of the 
school sent a message from the teachers. Miss 
Sanford treasured all these letters as long as 
she lived. The grade school teachers of Minne- 
apolis also sent her a birthday greeting of 
eighty dollars in gold, presented in two beauti- 
ful gilt boxes made for the purpose, and a 
card: *^To our dear Miss Sanford: You have 
done so much cheerfully for the grade teachers 
of Minneapolis that we venture to ask you to 
grant us one more favor, to accept the accom- 
panying birthday gift that we may know that 
our gratitude for your eighty golden years is 
recognized by you.'' 

The University of Minnesota celebrated the 
occasion by a general convocation of all the col- 
leges of the University at the University Ar- 
mory. **It was an event. University and 
alumni representatives had been at work for 
weeks arranging for this all-state convocation 
to pay tribute to Miss Sanford. On the stage 
with the honored guests sat a group representa- 
tive of the whole span of nearly thirty years 
in which Miss Sanford had been a member of 
the University faculty. There was Dr. William 
Watts Folwell, first president of the Univer- 
sity, the man who * discovered' Miss Sanford; 
Dr. Cyrus Northrop, President Emeritus of the 



MARIA SANFOED 263 

University, co-worker with Professor Sanford 
for twenty-five years; Professor John Corrin 
Hutchinson of the Department of Greek, who 
was on the faculty when Miss Sanford joined 
it ; Professor Leroy Arnold of Hamline Univer- 
sity, Miss Gratia Countryman, public libra- 
rian, and Professor Oscar Firkins, formerly a 
member of Miss Sanford 's department; all 
three of these were her former students. Pres- 
ident Vincent presided. The group contained 
the three men who had presided over the ad- 
ministration of the University since its begin- 
ning, and also the three veterans of the Univer- 
sity — Dr. Folwell, eighty-five years old; Dr. 
Northrop, eighty-two; and Miss Sanford, 
eighty. Dr. Northrop spoke of Miss Sanford 
from his long friendsliip and years of profes- 
sional relationship; Professor Hutchinson 
spoke of her from the standpoint of a colleague. 
Professor Arnold from the standpoint of the 
student before the teacher ; and Miss Country- 
man told of Miss Sanford as a citizen.'' At 
the close of her address Miss Countryman, on 
behalf of the alumni, presented Miss Sanford 
with a bouquet of eighty pink roses, one for 
each year. Professor Firkins then read a poem 
written for the occasion, entitled 



264 MARIA SANFOED 

MARIA 

What name, said you? No, not '^Mary," 
Debonair, sedate, and chary. 
Not ** Marie," demure and wary, 

Fits the presence I acclaim: 
No, the thing I chant is bigger. 
It is impetus and vigor, 
Truculence it is and rigor. 
It's a crisp and couchant trigger, 

And ** Maria'' is its name. 

She's no April, self-beguiled. 

With a dimmed and dropping eyelid, 

Nor a May, by zephyrs shy led. 

To some brook's enameled play: 
She is winter, lusty, stinging. 
Winter, martial, cordial, ringing. 
Fire-glow with frost-gleam bringing. 
All the geese, affrighted, winging 
From its presence far away. 

Of reforms she keeps the tally ; 
When the civic virtues rally, 
Leads the cry and heads the sally, 
With her besom sweeps the alley, 

And the handle of the same 
As a club she stoutly uses. 
Stroke for stroke she ne'er refuses, 
Satan, when he counts his bruises 

Pours confusion on her name. 

On through hootings and applauses 
She can steer her drove of causes, 
Propaganda fierce as Shaw's is 



MARIA SANFORD 265 

Crashes through the crapes and gauzes 

Raised to screen the bar or slum; 
If reform of vigor short is, 
She injects the aqua fortis, 
Egging on to speedier sorties 
The millenium, that tortoise, 

And that creeper, Kingdom Come. 

Quaking beam and trembling rafter 
Knew her hurricane of laughter, 
Strong to lift and buoy and waft her 

To some far-off land of mirth; 
And we guessed she had been tippling 
On that liquor blithely rippling. 
That intoxicant called Kipling, 

When the thunder-peal had birth. 

At her word, compelling fiat 
Tumult shuddered into quiet. 
Despotism fringed with riot 

Stamped the sway Maria bore; 
Did some student, bold of feature. 
Strive to challenge or impeach her, 
Override or overreach her. 
Debris from that hapless creature 

Made mosaic of the floor. 

When from sharp examination 
Back came themelet or oration, 
His own son — in that mutation — 

Scarce the student parent knew; 
Back it came with strange injections, 
Drawn and quartered, slit in sections; 



266 MAEIA SANFORD 

Hintings at august perfections, 
Charities iced with corrections, 
At his head Maria threw. 

' ' Shall ' ' and ' * Will, ' ' from mixed embraces, 
Scudded to their law^ful places, 
Pronouns rummaged for their cases, 
Mincing airs and maw^kish graces 

Vanished to some kindlier shore; 
How the air grew calorific. 
When she thundered, "Be specific! 
Prune it ! Write hieroglyphic 

When you're mummies — not before!" 

Let the years keep up their snowballs; 
They are gossamers and blowballs; 
Charon mourns his stinted obols. 

Time bewails his unpaid score; 
Hers were sixties hale as Goethe's, 
Romping seventies whose fate is 
On into the madcap eighties 

Fearless and uncurbed to pour. 

Praise her not with smug obeisance. 
Sleek and millinered complaisance! 
Save your peppermint and raisins 

For the dupe of sugared lies! 
Praise her, travel-soiled and dusty. 
Praise her, vehement and gusty, 
Praise her, kinked and knurled and crusty. 
Leonine and hale and lusty, 
Praise her, oaken-ribbed and trusty. 

Shout "Maria" to the skies. 

0. W. Firkins. 



MAEIA SANFORD 267 

During the reading of Mr. Firkins 's poem, 
Miss Sanford showed her evident enjoyment of 
its lines in the way which all her students knew 
so well — her face aglow, her eyes sparkling 
with an appreciation of its humor and her 
whole body frequently shaking with scarcely 
suppressed merriment. Her response to all 
these greetings was brief, but full of the fire of 
her indomitable personality. She spoke with 
feeling of her pride in the love of her students ; 
and for the first time alluded to her recent need 
to care for her health. 

Following the exercises at the University 
Miss Sanford was entertained at luncheon at 
the home of one of her friends ; for days after- 
wards she was kept busy reading scores of 
letters from people of prominence, from former 
students, and from people who were grateful 
for help she had given them. One of the let- 
ters she especially treasured contained this sen- 
tence: *^It is hardly necessary to ivisJi you 
happiness and merriment, since you were the 
original inventor and patentee of those states 
of mind ; but we can tell you how glad we are 
that you did invent them. ' ' 

Another writer remarked: *^ Herbert Spen- 
cer some where says (I quote this to show my 
learning) that life should not be measured by 



268 MARIA SANFORD 

its length but by its amount. Judged by this 
standard, Metbuselah, dear Miss Sanford, was 
an infant compared to you. You have had both 
length of life and fullness of life. That it has 
been a life of renunciation and sacrifice of per- 
sonal happiness I knoYv% but I know also that you 
would be the last to regret the self-forgetful 
service that has meant so much to the many 
who have come under your influence during the 
long years of your unceasing activity/' The 
director of the Minneapolis Art School sent his 
appreciation of the noble work she had done 
for the advancement of culture and a better 
understanding of art among the young people. 
A more personal letter came from a well 
kno^vn Minneapolis woman: *^It won't hurt 
you, I know, to have a bit of a love letter once in 
awhile, so this comes to tell you what a joy you 
are to all our hearts. You must know that 
already, and yet one's capacity to assimilate 
the expression of such love is seldom overtaxed, 
and you — who have no children after the flesh 
to call you * Mother', yet have hundreds of chil- 
dren after the spirit who sustain that relation- 
ship to you — will understand a word from one 
of them. To see a spirit incarnate, triumphant 
over all the material things of life, taking on 
each year added strength and beauty and with 



MAEIA SANFORD 269 

a heart large enough to understand the bond 
and the free, and to pour daily in overflowing 
measure insjDiration for all, makes one under- 
stand the great of all the past, and reach for- 
ward with faith and hope for the womanhood — 
nay, the manhood as well — of all the future. 
All this you do and we love you and revere you 
for it.'' 

Among all these letters from prominent peo- 
ple came one from her grand-nephew ** some- 
where in France". The soldier was again the 
boy living mth his great-aunt and going to 
school. He said: ^*You must be careful of 
yourself and not strain that back of yours. I 
read in Mother's letter that you had strained 
it working in the barn. I wish I were there to 
help you and make you stop lifting those heavy 
things which hurt your back." 

To all these friends Miss Sanford sent 
through the press a printed message: **When 
I heard that my friends had been asked to write 
letters I felt sorr^^ I feared that it would be a 
perfunctory service, a kind of duty, like going 
to a funeral ; but the letters, messages of love, 
warmed my heart. I was not puffed up. I have 
all this week felt like the wicked old sinner who 
heard a sermon on universal salvation. He 
went home, saying to himself, * Blessed doo- 



270 MARIA SANFOED 

trine, blessed doctrine ! If I could only believe 
it!''^ 

An editorial in the Minneapolis Tribune paid 
her an especially warm tribute: *^Dr. George 
E. Vincent was right when he once referred to 
Miss Sanford as 'the woman who had been re- 
tired and didn 't knoAv it. ' Representative Clar- 
ence B. Miller, of Duluth, was right too when 
he called her Hhe best known, best loved woman 
in Minnesota'; and Dr. William W. Folwell, 
first president of the University of Minnesota, 
has a clear title to the pride that is in him be- 
cause he * discovered' Maria Sanford. Man- 
kind's biggest item of debt to Maria Sanford, 
however, is that she discovered herself away 
back in her girlhood days in New England, and 
that she has made the most of that discovery 
ever since." 

The other papers of the city and most of 
those of the state did Miss Sanford honor on 
this day ; and, as she had done once before, she 
gave her message through the press to the pub- 
lic. The one for this day was perhaps the most 
notable of all. She said, *^Work is life to me. 
It always has been and always will be. I am 
hoping that my health and strength will hold out 
for another ten years, to enable me to do things 



MARIA SANFORD 271 

for others that I have always longed to do but 
never had the time.'' 

The next great event of Miss Sanford's life 
occurred in June, 1917. Although she had been a 
university professor for nearly thirty years she 
had no degree. The University of Minnesota 
had never granted an honorary degree, so that 
Miss Sanford was in the peculiar position of a 
professor with no degree at all. Many of her 
friends had expressed the wish that this honor 
might be given to one so worthy; but it was a 
retired public school teacher who took the first 
definite steps toward the accomplishment of the 
desire ; and a trustee of Carleton College, one of 
Miss Sanford 's old students, who carried it out. 
At the June commencement, 1917, Carleton 
College conferred upon President Emeritus 
Cyrus Northrop, of the University of Minne- 
sota, the degree of Doctor of Laws. Although 
other universities had long before conferred the 
degree on him. President Cowling stated that 
in the whole fifty years of its existence Carle- 
ton College had never before conferred this 
degree. At the same time Miss Sanford was 
made a Doctor of the More Humane Letters. 
In a simple undergraduate's gown, she was 
presented for the degree by a former student 
of her own, who was at that time Dean of 



272 MARIA SANFOED 

Women of Carleton College. The most memor- 
able passage in the presentation went to the 
hearts of the hearers : ^ ' She is an example of 
noble Christian womanhood, with an energy of 
fire and a heart of peace . . . gracious, 
loving, and beloved, to whom nothing human is 
alien." 

President Cowling said that the College hon- 
ored itself in thus showing its appreciation of 
the two best loved educators of Minnesota. At 
the age of more than eighty years Miss Sanf ord 
was as happy to have a right to the title of 
Doctor as only one could be who had had so 
stressful a life. It gave her a justifiable pleas- 
ure thereafter to have her letters addressed to 
Dr. Maria Sanf ord ; and her friends were mind- 
ful of their opportunity to give her the new 
title. 

Her health during the summer was so much 
improved that she was busy in the state with 
work for child welfare, liberty loan campaigns, 
and woman suffrage. She talked to business 
women's clubs, to Jewish and Catholic Associa- 
tions. Every kind of body working for the pub- 
lic welfare wanted her advice and approbation. 

Her interest in the public school which had 
been named for her was largely an indication 
of her firm loyalty to the public school system 



MARIA SANFORD 273 

of the country. She believed private schools 
for young children in a democracy were a grave 
mistake. When an opportunity offered itself 
for her to express her belief to one of the prom- 
inent supporters of several private schools she 
wrote as follows : ' ' Though until last evening 
you were a stranger to me, I have long known 
and honored your reputation for wisdom and 
public spirit, and I have wished I might say to 
you what I am now taking the liberty to say. I 
have been thinking deeply of the subject 
touched upon in our conversation on the way 
home. You will, I think, agree with me that the 
public school is one of the most valuable insti- 
tutions, and that all good citizens should be 
jealous of its popularity. Now, suppose that 
you were devoted to the public schools as Mr. 
Pillsbury was to the State University. Let me 
say first that I feel enthusiastic admiration for 
the particular private schools in which you are 
interested but I am a devotee of the public 
schools and I have regarded with deep regret 
the devotion which such men as yourself are 
giving to private schools. When people with 
shallow notions of pride choose private schools 
it does not matter, but when men like yourself 
and the other trustees of these private schools, 
men of public spirit and good judgment, stand 

18 



274 MARIA SANFORD 

for exclusive schools, it is a public loss. If a 
hundred men like yourself, having taste, refine- 
ment and wealth, had each been giving to the 
public school which his children attended as 
much time, enthusiastic interest and money as 
you are giving to the private schools, and some 
one should induce them to transfer their inter- 
ests to a private institution, could any advan- 
tage their children obtained equal the loss of 
their interest in and devotion to the public 
schools?'' 

At this period Miss Sanford was glad to be 
able to stay nearer home for a time, especially 
in cold weather. Each succeeding birthday was 
felt to be an event of public significance. Her 
eighty-first birthday was celebrated by a din- 
ner given at Senator James ElwelPs, at which 
the President of the University and his wife, the 
two ex-presidents and their wives, and friends 
to the number of fourteen were present. On 
the day following, the children of the Maria 
Sanford School celebrated the occasion. Each 
pupil had written and sent through the mail an 
invitation to their patron to attend the celebra- 
tion. On this occasion they brought gifts from 
home. Some had baked pies and cakes and 
cookies. Others made candy and crullers, 
bread, book marks, handkerchiefs and paper 



MARIA SANFORD 275 

wreaths. One little girl who could not cook 
brought two eggs, each bearing on its shell the 
penciled legend that it had been laid on Miss 
Sanford's birthday. Some of the small boys 
made a cake holder with a place for eighty-one 
candles around the edge. The littlest children 
made decorated birthday cards with their own 
drawings and some of the cards with the sen- 
tence, ^ ' I love you ' ' printed on them, and signed 
their names to the cards. The other children 
wrote little birthday letters. All of these gifts 
Miss Sanford kept. 

The school at this time was presented by the 
Thomas Lowry School of Minneapolis with six 
beautiful pictures in honor of Professor San- 
ford. A friend of Miss Sanford 's also gave 
to the school a beautiful reproduction of the 
sculptor Daniel Chester French's frieze. The 
Teacher, executed for Wellesley College. Miss 
Sanford took lunch with the teachers on this 
day, talked to them as a body, and gave four 
talks to pupils in four different rooms, because 
there was no assembly room to which they 
could all repair. She received their great array 
of gifts and heard dozens of presentation 
speeches. When it was all over she put a star 
after this one of a long list of birthdays, and 
asked that the names of pupils neither absent 



276 MARIA SANFORD 

nor tardy each term should be sent to her to be 
placed on her roll of honor. 

During the winter, while she was on a trip to 
Montana, she sent some sleds to the children of 
the school. Farview Park adjoining the school 
gave them the most wonderful playground in 
the city; and the children enjoyed sliding in the 
park. So much did they enjoy the sleds that 
the teachers took a novel way of getting obedi- 
ence. The child who was best in each room 
during the day was allowed to take a sled home 
over night, returning it to school the next day. 
At the end of the week the child who had been 
best all the week took the sled home Friday 
night to keep until the following Monday. 

As the school was in need of funds for some 
apparatus Miss Sanford gave four lectures for 
that purpose. At the request of the teachers 
she gave them on several occasions a model 
reading lesson. The children, on their part, 
whenever they had anything they could share 
with Miss Sanford were eager to do so. The 
school had been presented with a victrola which 
the children wished to have some one enjoy 
during the summer vacation, and so sent it to 
Miss Sanford ^s home. They had learned to sing 
with its aid her favorite songs. Home, Sweet 
Home, Annie Laurie, and Brahm's Lullaby. 



MARIA SANFOED 277 

This exchange of good wishes and gifts made 
a very strong bond between the children and 
their benefactor. She did not forget them even 
when school was out. She was interested in 
clean-up week observances by the schools, and to 
encourage the pupils to keep up the observance 
throughout the year she drove around the neigh- 
borhood in the summer, inspecting the home 
yards and praising all the good work she saw. 
Her interest extended to each pupil. She talked 
privately, for instance, to one boy who was try- 
ing to break the habits of truancy and smoking, 
and told him she was proud of the efforts he had 
made. She also told the children that she wanted 
her Liberty Loan bond purchase made through 
the school. 

The first principal of the school gives a vivid 
account of the relation of Miss Sanford to the 
children: **From beginning to end the circum- 
stances of Miss Sanford 's connection with the 
school, its pupils and teachers, were those rare 
in human experience — ^without a flaw. Her 
first visit was on the twentieth of December, 
1916. Our little school was completed in No- 
vember, so we planned for a party on Miss San- 
ford's birthday. The weather turned bitterly 
cold, 28° below zero, and as our portable build- 
ings were stove heated and the floors cold, T 



278 MAEIA SANFORD 

telephoned her on the evening before, that al- 
though it would be a disappointment to the chil- 
dren, I preferred our plans should be post- 
poned rather than that she should run any risk 
of taking cold from exposure. She replied, in 
her energetic way, that she would be with us, 
and the next day, there she was, and so inter- 
ested in the little people of the school ! As for 
them it was a case of love at first sight. They 
said, * How little she is, but how big a voice she 
has, and her eyes are so bright ! "We love her ! ' 

*^0n that first visit she told them that they 
were all her children. I am sure that the boys 
and girls who were there that day will never 
forget her talk. After the pupils were dis- 
missed she talked to the teachers, young assist- 
ants who were just beginning their work in 
Minneapolis. She told them of her early teach- 
ing, of its failures and its triumphs. One of 
the girls, Avho had been seriously considering 
giving up the profession said, *Miss Sanford 
has given me a new outlook. My discourage- 
ment has vanished in thin air. I feel that she 
has made teaching the noblest of professions, 
and I am glad to follow where she has led. ' 

''One incident which greatly amused Miss 
Sanford grew out of her talk on the use of good 
English. Some of the larger boys were so im- 



MAEIA SANFORD 279 

pressed that they constituted themselves a vig- 
ilance committee to stop the use of profanity. 
There was an immediate improvement in the 
choice of words on the play ground as the cul- 
prits were brought to the office. One recess a 
delegation appeared dragging in a boy who 
stood with averted face while they reported, 
^He has been swearing.' I questioned him and 
he admitted that the charge was just. Then I 
inquired what he had said and a chorus replied 
*He said gee whiz, he did!' 

^^She took a personal interest in the children. 
One bright little French boy, whose home was on 
the river flats, made a recitation which pleased 
her. She noticed the ragged condition of his 
clothes, and insisted upon ordering for him a 
new outfit. Knowing that her purse was not so 
large as her heart I refused to permit her to do 
this, and through the Children's Eelief Society 
had the boy better clothed before her next visit. 
A dwarfed child excited her sympathy and in- 
terest, and, at her solicitation, a specialist ex- 
amined him and reported that in his case there 
was no remedy She gave sympathetic advice 
and praise to a lad who had a terrible inherit- 
ance and wlio was making a valiant and success- 
ful struggle against an appetite for drink. 

*^To encourage the habit of saving, she 



280 MARIA SANFORD 

bought thrift stamps to be given as rewards to 
those who earned and saved their pennies. Ev- 
ery month slips containing specimens of the chil- 
dren 's penmanship were sent her, and she faith- 
fully compared them with those of the previous 
month. Her honor roll contained the names of 
those neither absent nor tardy during the term. 
In a letter written from Montana she says *I 
am keeping the list carefully in my trunk and 
when I get home I shall hang it up in my room. ' 
In the same letter she refers to the fifth grade 
pupils who had been transferred to the Bremer 
School. She says, *I want you to tell the boys 
and girls who have gone to the Bremer that they 
are still my boys and girls, and that I shall 
look for their names on the roll of honor just 
the same as before'; and again she says, * I can- 
not tell you how dear to me that school is, how 
I love the teachers and the children, and how I 
long to see them. I am sure the school is, and 
is to be, one of the brightest and most blessed 
spots in Minneapolis. ' 

**0n one occasion after her return from an 
eastern trip Miss Sanford said to the pupils 
that when she was away from Minneapolis her 
first thought was of her home, but her second 
was always of the school. The pupils held her 
in the deepest reverence. Their regard for her 



MAEIA SANFORD 281 

was, I believe, unusual in the hearts of children 
so young. We think of reverence as a tribute 
from more mature natures, but over and again 
it was manifested there. Their greatest joy, 
their highest reward, was to have Miss Sanford 
visit the school. They loved to WTite to her, to 
make for her Christmas cards, valentines and 
Easter greetings. 

^^Miss Sanford 's last visit to the school was 
in the spring of 1919. The occasion was the 
presentation of the white ribbons and pins at 
the completion of the campaign for cleanliness. 
The exercises were held in the ravine on the 
east side of Farview Park. It was a perfect 
day, and an ideal setting for our pageant. The 
pupils who had left our school to attend the 
higher grades in the Hawthorne and Bremer 
were excused in time to join us. One of the 
lads, acting as king, knighted those who had 
kept their vows (brushing teeth, bathing, deep 
breathing in the open air), and then the young 
knights marched to where Miss Sanford sat 
embowered in flowers and knelt before their 
Queen to receive their badges and her blessing. 
Her talk, interspersed with the songs of birds, 
was like her life, earnest, pure, inspiring, up- 
lifting. Since it was to be her last time there, 
I am deeply grateful that it was so perfect an 



282 MARIA SANFOED 

ending of the sweet relationship which from 
first to last was a benediction to ns all. ' ' 

During the winter Miss Sanford's health was 
so ranch impaired that she wrote to a former 
student and member of her faculty : ' ' The doc- 
tors have found by X-ray a very serious aneu- 
rism of the aorta. I am forbidden to do any 
manual labor and to have any mental excite- 
ment. Fortunately lecturing does not come un- 
der either of these heads, and I spoke four 
times last week and have another lecture for 
this afternoon. It is mostly work without pay, 
but that is what I have laid out for myself for 
these years, and I am willing to be dreadful 
careful if I may only be allowed to help in the 
work in which I am interested; if not I shall 
fold my hands and trust that the work may be 
put on those more capable. ... I can 
enjoy fun just as well as ever, even though I 
know I am walking in the shadow of death. God 
meant life to be bright, and we serve him in 
making it so; and then I may live years, and 
it would be a pity to carry a long face all that 
time. ' ' 

A doctor at a distance who knew of Miss San- 
ford 's poor health wrote to her concerning it: 
*^I am taking the liberty of writing the *best 
loved woman in Minnesota' a little note. I feel 



MARIA SANFORD 283 

that I also belong to the circle of your friends, 
for you have given me a share in your hope and 
good cheer. I realize the gravity of the news 
that the doctor conveyed to you with regard to 
your health, but after all what does it matter 
what gate God leaves open when he wants to 
bring his children home ! I admired your pluck 
in going on with your life as you had planned, 
and I also think your judgment was sound. 
Talking is not so much an effort to you as 
forced retirement, and, strange as it may seem, 
few people ever died of aneurism but rather of 
some of the inter-current diseases. Some day 
when I am in the city I am going to call just to 
see you in your home, so I can have that picture 
of you in my mind. ' ' 

Early in the year 1918 Miss Sanford stated 
that to her Carnegie pension of fifteen hundred 
dollars she had added an irregular sum of 
from four to eight hundred dollars a year by 
lecturing. During this year she spent much 
more than her earnings in the support of her 
niece and children who were refugees from 
Turkey, and in the education of other children 
belonging to her family. She still felt that she 
must do as much lecturing as possible. 

Starting from her nephew's home in North 
Dakota early in the year Miss Sanford pro- 



284 MARIA SANFOED 

ceeded westward, making patriotic speeches on 
an average of two a day, until she reached the 
University of Montana at Missoula. There she 
ended a two day patriotic speaking campaign in 
which she appeared before the high school once, 
at the university twice, at a luncheon in her 
honor at noon and at the church in the evening. 
This lecture tour was her contribution to her 
country in its crisis. She said as she had no 
husband, sons or grandsons to send to the war 
she must do something on her own initiative; 
and that was what she chose to do. 

Her spirits were saddened by the news from 
the front. In a letter to her niece at home she 
wrote: **I really was very blue yesterday. I 
felt as if this would be my last trip. You see, 
Saturday night the paper brought Haig's ad- 
dress to his army and I was very much de- 
pressed by it. That night I did not sleep, but 
last night 's news was more hopeful. I do hope 
the reserves will come to the help of those brave 
British soldiers. The loss of the channel ports 
would be dreadful. Well, last night I went to 
sleep about nine o 'clock and did not waken until 
morning. Such a thing has not happened in a 
long time, and all the world looks brighter this 
morning." A few days later, ** Isn't it good 
the English are still holding firm! I do hope 



MARIA SANFORD 285 

they will not fail. ... I make my ex- 
penses just as little as possible but I can't re- 
sist the desire to get a paper morning and even- 
ing." In the month of May Miss Sanford was 
traveling so rapidly that she wrote her niece 
where she could be found. From Great Falls, 
Montana, she wrote : * ^ I have two lectures to- 
day. Tomorrow I go to Fort Benton. Monday 
I go to Chouteau, Tuesday, Wednesday and 
Thursday I lecture here and Friday twice. Fri- 
day I leave here, stopping at Highland to give 
their commencement address. Then Saturday 
night I start for home. This has a pleasant 
sound to me, I assure you.'' 

Miss Sanford gave five lectures in one day at 
Lewistown, Montana, talking three hours and a 
half in all. At the Lewistown High School she 
spoke at 8:30 A. M., at the Clarkson High 
School across the river at 11 A. M., at the Lew- 
istown Normal School at 2 P. M., at another 
school in the afternoon, and at a Red Cross 
meeting at the same place in the evening. This 
she said was the most strenuous day she ex- 
perienced on this trip, during which she gave a 
hundred talks in about six weeks. Our Duty 
to Our Country was ahvays the subject of the 
evening talks. She was particularly proud of 
the ovation she received at a big Red Cross 



286 MARIA SANFORD 

meeting at Great Falls, Montana. The hall was 
packed and nearly three hundred people had to 
stand. A silver collection was announced, and 
to spur the people on to give freely for the Red 
Cross Miss Sanford told them an old Connecti- 
cut recipe for pieplant pie: **Put in all the 
sugar your conscience will let you, and then 
shut your eyes and put in another handful." 
This appeal brought eighty-five dollars in about 
a minute. 

While Miss Sanford was urging people to 
forego luxuries in order to give for the war, 
she felt that she herself must do what she asked 
others to do. She did not feel that she had a 
right to go into a dining car and spend a dollar 
for a meal ; so she stopped at the lunch counters 
and bought her meals for twenty or twenty-five 
cents. The other seventy-five cents, she felt, 
belonged to the Government for the successful 
prosecution of the war. 

On this trip Miss Sanford made one of her 
visits to the Indian School at Browning, Mon- 
tana. The Blackfeet Indian Reservation she 
had visited three times during the preceding 
six months, at her own expense, because she 
knew that the Indian children were suffering 
with trachoma, and she hoped to be able to help 
them by encouraging them to treat their eyes. 



MARIA SANFORD 287 

The control she had over the children was so 
great that the agency physician wrote through 
the special supervisor in charge of the Black- 
feet School to the Commissioner of Indian Af- 
fairs at Washington, asking if there was any 
way by which Miss Sanford could be identified 
with the Indian service. If so he felt that it 
should by all means be done. Miss Sanford in 
writing home to her niece said: **I hope to 
make the children anxious to take the treatment 
and do just as the doctors tell them, but I tell 
you it is pretty hard to think of having a pain- 
ful application to your eyes two or three times a 
week for a year! Then they must use their 
own towels, and this is hard in homes where 
people are careless; but I hope to reach all of 
them at last." 

She made another effort to do something for 
Browning by writing to the Department of the 
Interior at Washington to see if Browning 
could not be made a townsite. Then the people 
could put in water and lights and could bond 
the town for such a school building as they 
needed. This would also give the vote to many 
men who were not then voters. 

On a previous visit Miss Sanford had urged 
the people to interest the young Indians in en- 
listing in the army. She felt that for the sake 



288 MARIA SANFORD 

of the younger children the young men who 
were loafing about the town should be sent 
away, and that for the young men themselves 
nothing could be so valuable as the discipline 
they would get in the army and the habits of 
constant employment which they would there 
learn. She knew that some Indians from Min- 
nesota who had joined the army were reported 
as excellent soldiers; that the discipline had 
had an admirable effect upon them. Influenced 
by what Miss Sanford said the people of 
Browning had an enthusiastic patriotic meet- 
ing, as a result of which a number of the young 
Indians enlisted. But after Indians were sent 
back on the ground that as wards and non- 
citizens they could not be employed in the army. 
Miss Sanford asked the Assistant Commis- 
sioner at Washington if there was not a possi- 
bility of correcting this by allowing the Indians 
to enlist as they were, or by granting citizen- 
ship to any willing to enlist. 

During this trip to the west Miss Sanford 
wrote to her niece at home **My own affairs 
have not gone very prosperously. I hoped to 
get two lectures that I did not get, and one in 
the west that I planned on paid me less money 
than I expected. Still I keep up pretty good 
courage so long as I feel pretty well. I feel that 




MARIA SANFORD 
In Wyoming 



MARIA SANFOED 289 

I have been of real benefit to these Indian chil- 
dren and that pays me for all I have spent and 
suffered. I should not have decided to come on 
only I wanted to see and talk to them. 

**The doctor said every child must have a 
separate wash basin as well as towels. The 
afternoon of the day I spoke to them there was 
a regular rush for the store to get the basins. 
This shows they did heed. 

**I have been a little down hearted some days 
because I do not see my way clear, but I know 
that does not help. 

**I was quite successful in my errand for the 
Indians and I hope my coming may be a source 
of good to them. I had an interview with the 
deputy commissioner. The commissioner was 
out of to^vn, and I had a very pleasant inter- 
view with a senator who is much interested in 
the Indians. I am very glad I came." 

It is safe to say that the people of Browning 
were as glad as she ; for as a result of her visit 
there sixty per cent, of the terrible scourge of 
trachoma was stamped out. And a visit she 
made to Washington at her o^^ti expense enabled 
the people to get fifteen thousand dollars toward 
their much needed school house. 

On her return home in July she took part in 
a historic pageant presented by the Civic Play- 

19 



290 MARIA SANFORD 

ers of Minneapolis on the steps of the Minne- 
apolis Institute of Fine Arts. This pageant, 
entitled The Torch Bearers, was given for the 
Conncil of National Defense, the proceeds to go 
to the Jewish War Relief Fnnd. The proceeds 
of a second presentation were nsed by the Min- 
nesota Division of the National Conncil of De- 
fense for patriotic propaganda. 

A prologue in verse and five episodes with 
an interlude were prepared by the president of 
the Civic Players, who Avas one of her former 
students. After the fifth episode of the pageant, 
Miss Sanford appeared on the steps of the Art 
Institute to represent the Voice of the People. 
A reporter began his review of the pageant: 
**A little old lady in a black dress stood on the 
topmost step at the entrance to the Art Insti- 
tute, framed in an orgy of gorgeous color. On 
pedestals at the side were groups of Belgian 
refugees, who had trailed painfully up the long 
flights of steps to find shelter with Mother 
E,arth and with Liberty. Beside her, with the 
great white pillars of the Institute as a back- 
ground were Columbia, Justice, Fraternity, 
Equality, and the women of Columbia's Court, 
holding in their arms an abundance of flowers 
and grains. Flags of the allies waved trium- 
phantly. The little old lady looked do^vn into the 



MARIA SANFORD 291 

faces of hundreds of soldiers and sailors, 
massed row on row on the white steps. Then she 
raised her arms and spoke so clearly that she 
could be heard by every one of the nine thou- 
sand people in the audience. No moment of the 
pageant of The Torch Bearers approached in 
beauty or impressiveness this picture with 
Maria Sanford, * Minnesota's Grand Old Lady,' 
exhorting the audience on the white stairway: 
^' 'Go forth; you are the torch bearers of a 
higher civilization. Over there is darkness and 
oppression and misery. Go forth, bear light 
and freedom and joy! Your courage shall de- 
feat the oppressor ! Your strength shall tram- 
ple his ranks in the dust! Your self-sacrifice 
and devotion shall bind up the broken hearted 
and bring to those who sit in darlniess and the 
shadow of death light and life, victory and 
peace. Go forth triumphant on this glorious 
mission ! 

^' ^Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 
Are all with thee; are all with thee.' 

'*No cheers greeted Miss Sanford as she fin- 
ished her address. Heads were bowed through- 
out the audience and the voices that sang the 
Star Spangled Banner a few seconds later were 
softened into reverence." 



292 MARIA SANFORD 

As much as Miss Sanford appreciated the 
praise of her friends she felt that the reporter 
had given too much prominence to her appear- 
ance on this occasion and wrote him a note to 
that effect. It happened that he was one of her 
former students, and in reply to her letter he 
said: *^Out of the thousands of students who 
enjoyed your guidance it is unlikely that you 
can remember me personally and you probably 
have no recollection of me, yet when your hap- 
pily phrased note came yesterday it brought 
back to me the eagerness with which I antici- 
pated your classes when I attended them nearly 
fifteen years ago, and because I did enjoy them 
and gained much from them it was not only a 
great privilege but a great pleasure to be able 
to review the pageant and to say a few words — 
however much they fell short of intention — 
about one of the most stirring speeches to which 
I ever have listened. It seemed to me that you 
did a very wonderful thing that evening, and I 
don't believe it possible to measure the amount 
of patriotism that you stirred. You may not 
know it but yours was the only voice that car- 
ried to every part of the huge audience. I do 
appreciate what all the others have done 
towards making the pageant the success it is. 
However, I can not change my opinion that 



MARIA SANFOUD 293 

yonr oration aroused a tremendous patriotic 
thrill — and it is the one thing that is taking me 
again to the Art Institute tonight." 

During the summer Miss Sanford continued 
work she had begun for a Minnesota unit which 
was to be sent to France. As a part of her con- 
tribution one Minneapolis woman, a graduate 
of the University, sent her a check for several 
hundred dollars, and a letter as follows : ^'This 
is sent unsolicited as I want every dollar to 
enter active service as a volunteer, not as a 
draftee. You may wonder why the check is 
being sent to yourself. In the first place it 
probably would not have been given except for 
hearing you talk last week. This being true, 
you have really earned the money and should 
count it on your list of funds raised. Again, 
I want to take advantage of this opportunity 
to express personal appreciation of your own 
fine, sturdy qualities of spirit and leadership. 
You never can be made to realize what you 
mean to the rest of us as an example of initia- 
tive and a spirit that always recognizes the 
finest in things and people, fearlessly and 
keenly following what you perceive to be the 
right, but tolerant to all." 

Shortly afterward Miss Sanford received a 
smaller check for the same purpose, and a note 



294 MARIA SANFOUD 

whicli said: **It is with pleasure that acting 
under the instruction of those behind your 
meeting at Stillwater on Sunday I send you the 
entire proceeds of the collection. You are to 
use this for the college work as you deem best. 
We would be glad if you wish to have it applied 
as a part of your contribution to the fund. ' ' 

In this patriotic war work Miss Sanford did 
not forget the children, and the same week that 
she received the checks above mentioned she 
received also a letter from one of the third 
grade children at the Maria Sanford School. 
The little girl wrote : **I earned one of the thrift 
stamps that you left. I got the thrift stamp 
because I earned the most money of any child 
in the school. The way I earned the money was 
by washing dishes for my mother. For that I 
received twenty-five cents a week. My father 
gave me twenty-five cents a week for shelling 
beans. I get two thrift stamps each week. I 
thank you very much for the thrift stamps that 
you left.'' 

Miss Sanford wrote a typical letter to the 
little girl, telling her that she was much pleased 
to get her letter and was delighted that she had 
been so persevering in her work; and assured 
her that the habit she had formed of working 
faithfully was even more valuable than the 



MARIA SANFORD 295 

stamps. She closed by saying, **I shall be 
proud to meet you when I visit the school 
again.'' Any one who ever knew the Maria 
Sanf ord School children can imagine how proud 
the child was to receive that letter. 

While working for the Minnesota Unit Miss 
Sanford was notified by the State President 
of the Minnesota Women's Suffrage Associa- 
tion that she had been appointed a member of 
a ratification committee to serve in what the 
association believed would be the final drive in 
the enfranchisement of the women of the 
United States. The President of the United 
States had been advocating the federal sufcage 
amendment as a war measure, and with his ac- 
tive cooperation the National Committee be- 
lieved that success was assured in the near fu- 
ture. Miss Sanford hoped to live to see suffrage 
granted to women, but that was not to be. 

A new tribute was paid to her this year by 
the dedication to her of a new patriotic song en- 
titled Loyal Minnesota. The proceeds of the 
song were to go to war relief work. The song 
was dedicated to *^ Professor Sanford, Minne- 
sota 's Grand Old Lady — ^who never grows old. ' ' 

Miss Sanford 's optimism and her desire to 
help others involved her several times late in 
life in further financial difficulties at the same 



296 MARIA SANFOED 

time that she was straining every nerve to lift 
her heaviest bnrden. According to the Puritan 
tradition she felt herself charged with the well 
being of all the .members of her family and she 
tried to provide for their welfare when she 
should be taken from them. In this attempt 
she spent money for stock in a rubber planta- 
tion in Mexico, in a marble quarry in Colorado, 
and in copper mining in Montana. None of 
these ever gave her any returns. A few people 
who knew of her investments blamed her for 
wasting money ; but one judge of large experi- 
ence said that among all his acquaintances he 
knew of no one who had not succumbed to a 
similar temptation. The bankers who took care 
of Miss Sanford's affairs for many years gave 
similar testimony. 

When she at last gave up hope of securing 
money in that way, she took part in a land 
drawing contest at the Fort Peck Indian Ees- 
ervation in Montana, and was awarded a claim, 
but felt that she was too old then to become a 
farmer. A former student of Miss Sanford's in 
Montana wrote to her that the number she had 
draA\m would entitle her to a homestead. He 
said that if she would go to Montana he would 
select the very best piece of land on the Reser- 
vation that her number would entitle her to, 



MARIA SANFORD 297 

and would take her to examine her claim. He 
assured her that all of the Montana people 
wonld endeavor to make her stay among them 
not only pleasant but profitable. So gieat was 
her vigor even now that these business men did 
not think of her as too old or too feeble to un- 
dertake the life of a pioneer farmer. 

As the state of her health permitted she con- 
tinued to travel long distances in the interest 
of any cause for which her help was wanted. 
She went to New York City, sent by the Gover- 
nor of Minnesota to the first national conference 
on unemployment. The delegation of several 
hundred men and Avomen met in the City Hall 
and was welcomed by the Mayor. Professor 
Sanford was prominent among the labor lead- 
ers, state labor officials, settlement workers, 
factory inspectors and heads of charity organ- 
izations. At this conference she made a telling 
speech at the morning session. The value of 
her work here caused the Governor to appoint 
her the follomng month as a delegate to the 
tenth annual conference of the National Child 
Labor Committee in New Orleans. So much 
interest did she manifest in the work of the 
Child "Welfare League of Minnesota, especially 
in the work for the feeble minded, that at the 
meeting of the State Conference of Charities 



298 MARIA SANFOED 

and Corrections in 1919 she was made honorary 
president of the association. 

The girls of the new Vocational School asked 
Miss Sanford to give the first commencement 
address. Fonr years later the principal de- 
clared that it was the best address that had 
ever been given to the school. Miss Sanford 
was so much interested in this new school that 
she asked the class to write to her abont them- 
selves, their work, their hopes and their 
troubles. Many of them, after returning to 
their homes in various parts of the state, did 
as she had asked, and so pleased her that she 
kept their letters and wrote to them once a 
month. As always she met them upon their 
own ground. In one letter she said: **If you 
are at work I wish you would tell me in your 
next letter how much you have earned in the 
month past and how much you have been able 
to save either to pay money lent you for your 
education or to put in the bank. I shall be very 
glad when each of you has a bank account and 
saves a little each week to add to it. I don't 
want you to lay up the money which you ought 
to give to your mother but I want you to save 
the money which other girls spend for candy 
and ice cream and to go to the movies. Save 
this money carefully and by and by you will be 



MARIA SANFORD 299 

pleased and proud to see how much you have 
laid up." 

Another of Miss Sanford's activities this 
year was a four weeks' service as speaker for 
the Citizens' League of Hennepin County. The 
chairman of the executive committee had writ- 
ten to ask her, because of her thorough devo- 
tion to the cause of temperance and her inter- 
est in working men, to assist the League in the 
campaign for prohibition. Although it was 
some years before the dry law was passed Miss 
Sanford was felt to have done great service in 
the cause. She was more at home this year 
than she had been for some time, yet her attach- 
ment to her home surroundings was often ex- 
pressed. Writing to her niece who was away 
for a few days she said regarding her work in 
the temperance cause: **I enjoy the work and 
do not get very tired but it does seem lonesome 
to eat alone every day. I have had three invita- 
tions to lunch this week and I am going down 
to take breakfast with a neighbor this morning. 
She is to be all alone. I hope ... I shall 
get another letter from you today. It makes 
you seem near and I love to get even a hasty 
line such as I am sending you." 

At the meeting of the Minnesota Educational 
Association in Minneapolis this year Miss San- 



300 MARIA SANFORD 

ford was asked to be one of the speakers. She 
received the most spirited recognition ever 
awarded a public speaker by this association. 
The crowd stood cheering, waving handker- 
chiefs and making demonstrations which took 
on the air of an ovation to a great political 
leader, and lasted for some time after she 
reached the platform. At this meeting she was 
nominated for the presidency of the association^ 
but declined because she was too busy and exr 
pected to be out of the state much of the time 
until the following May. She thanked her 
friends for the courtesy but asked them not to 
vote for her. She was made instead an honor- 
ary member of the association. 



CHAPTER X 
THE FAREWELL 

The year 1919 was marked by perhaps a 
greater variety of talks than Miss Sanford had 
been called upon before to give. One Sunday 
she spoke at St. Mark's, the largest Episcopal 
church in the city, to an audience of twelve hun- 
dred at a memorial service for British war 
heroes; and for several Sundays during the 
illness of its minister she preached in the Con- 
gregational church of which she was a trustee. 
She received the thanks of the secretary for 
speaking to the women of the Minneapolis Steel 
and Machinery Company; and she was asked 
by a Minneapolis High School teacher of his- 
tory and commercial law to read to his Ameri- 
can history classes on the abolition movement. 

Easter services in Minneapolis in 1919 were 
observed, not only in the churches but on the 
military field; and undenominational services 
were held at Farview Park in North Minneap- 
olis. At this park, which adjoins the Maria 
301 



302 MARIA SANFOED 

Sanford School, Professor Sanford was asked 
to speak. With her head bared and her face 
lifted to the large audience standing above her 
on the natural amphitheater of the hillside, Miss 
Sanford with a clear and exultant voice gave 
her Easter message like a seer of old. The clos- 
ing paragraph was heartfelt : 

' * Now our boys are coming home triumphant 
and we are rejoicing that the land is free, but 
there is another freedom for Avhich Christ gave 
his efforts, the freedom of the spirit, the spirit 
of God. Today we are remembering that peace 
and right and justice are His attributes. I feel 
we shall obey His inspirations and make our 
land really free. On this glorious Easter morn- 
ing shall we not, one and all, come and hold 
open the windows of our souls to the light of 
the Sun of Righteousness! Shall we not con- 
secrate ourselves to that light of God which 
shall go on brighter and brighter ? Let us live 
the life of His children, the life of Christ the 
risen Lord, whom we today honor." 

As the season drew toward summer, Miss 
Sanford was in frequent request for baccalaure- 
ate addresses, although she did not travel long 
distances from the state. A passage from a 
letter to her niece in Smyrna indicates the ful- 
ness of her days : ^^I am home from the bacca- 



MARIA SANFORD 303 

laureate service where I gave the sermon this 
morning, and for the first time in weeks I have 
at least twenty-fonr hours when I have no 
speech to prepare. Tomorrow night there is to 
be a grand rally on the steps of the capitol in 
St. Paul in honor of the passing of the suffrage 
bill by Congress. At this time I am expected 
to speak, but my part will be a few words 
only." Her sense of humor was gratified on 
one of these occasions by a remark sent her 
from a young girl's letter to a friend in which 
she said, *^I hope to see Jeannette tomorrow at 
the bacchanalian sermon which Maria Sanford 
is going to preach." 

Her homely common sense was as marked as 
in her younger days. A high school principal 
in a letter of appreciation for a lecture she had 
given before his school wrote that the senior 
class at a meeting held the afternoon after her 
address for the purpose of choosing a class 
motto, had ended a long and arduous argument 
by unanimously adopting a striking sentence 
from her morning address : ''Keep your back- 
bone straight and your head on top of it. ' ' 

At the opening of the University summer 
school an unusual experience proved that she 
did not falter even when a request came for 
that which was hardest for her to give. A 



304 MARIA SANFORD 

strange young woman went to her house on the 
morning when the summer school opened. Miss 
Sanford's house was a mile from the Univer- 
sity, and the young woman appeared at half- 
past eleven to ask Miss Sanford to lend her 
twenty-five dollars with which to register before 
twelve o'clock. The young woman was a 
stranger in town and had come to the city with- 
out money for her fees. There was only half an 
hour before registration closed. Miss Sanford, 
when she told the story, said that although it 
was very unusual for her to have so much money 
in the house she happened to have that amount 
and gave it to the girl without knowing whether 
she should ever see or hear from her again. She 
was rather annoyed ; but she felt that she could 
not allow anyone to say that Miss Sanford did 
not practice what she preached — kindness. 

At Christmas time this year Miss Sanford 
was far from well. She told a friend that she 
was having the ^ ^ horrors ' ' ; cold sweats and an 
agony of mind not to be described, but so much 
worse than physical pain that she was in terror 
at the thought of a recurrence of the attacks. 
She became very much interested in her 
friend 's explanation of the new psychology and 
her assurance that the '* horrors" could be 
overcome. She began at once to study the sub- 




MARIA SANFORD 



MAEIA SANFOED 305 

ject, resolutely putting her troubles behind her ; 
shortly again she was lecturing. 

In the spring of 1919 she had been invited 
by the St. Anthony FaUs Chapter of the D. A. E. 
to become a member of that chapter, and had 
accepted the invitation. Before the election in 
the fall, however, it w^as found that she was a 
**real grand-daughter of the Eevolution"; and 
so she was asked instead to become an honor- 
ary member of every chapter in the state. She 
was accepted October 18, 1919, by the board of 
management of the National Society of the 
Daughters of the American Eevolution. At the 
state midmnter conference in February she 
gave an apostrophe to the flag. Once before 
she had given an impromptu address of a sim- 
ilar kind. The spirit of these addresses had so 
impressed her hearers that she was once again 
asked to speak on the same subject. This time 
the speech, expanded into a powerful address, 
became famous as her true valedictory. Deliv- 
ered at the heart of the nation, on the subject 
which had always been with her a passion, it 
formed a fitting and beautiful close to her long 
and fruitful life. Early in the spring of 1920 
the Minnesota State Eegent of the D. A. E. 
asked Miss Sanford as the guest of the state 
chapters to attend the national convention in 

20 



306 MARIA SANFORD 

Washington to be held in April, her expenses 
to be paid by all the chapters. One chapter 
gave an additional sum for their honored guest 
to use for what would give her most pleasure. 
The proprietor of a large hat shop, herself a 
stranger to Miss Sanford, asked the honor of 
making her a new bonnet for the occasion. Cau- 
tioned not to make it too modern to be appropri- 
ate to Miss Sanford 's distinctive style of dress- 
ing, she produced a beautiful creation worth on 
sale thirty dollars, but so modest appearing and 
so perfectly suited to the wearer that Miss San- 
ford, as she exhibited it with delight to friends 
constantly surrounding her during the journey, 
told them it must have cost as much as ten dol- 
lars. The bonnet now reposes among other 
objects of historic interest in the old Sibley 
House, at Mendota, Minnesota. 

Miss Sanford, at the request of the President- 
General, was to give her apostrophe to the flag 
at the opening session of the convention, April 
19. In order to save her strength one woman 
was assigned to guard and watch over her 
throughout the journey. The special train was 
filled with former students who could not re- 
sist the temptation to visit with their beloved 
professor, and to shower her with fruit, candy, 
and flowers. Though she appeared feeble she 



MARIA SANFORD 307 

showed that she thoroughly enjoyed every min- 
ute of the trip. 

On reaching Washington she was accompa- 
nied to the home of Senator Knute Nelson of 
Minnesota, where she had always been wel- 
comed on her visits to that city, and where she 
rested quietly until the opening session of the 
convention. On Monday morning she was ac- 
companied to the convention hall and allowed 
to rest quietly until the time of her address. 
The prettiest girl among the ushers, a dark 
southern beauty, was chosen to hold the great 
silk convention flag as the aged orator ad- 
dressed it. When the hundreds to whom she 
was a stranger saw a little, frail old lady come 
forward to the speaking stand they resigned 
themselves with hearts of compassion, expect- 
ing to hear not a word of the address. As the 
first words rang upon their ears the great audi- 
ence was hushed to attention. Not a syllable 
was lost. At the close of the inspired address 
women through a mist of tears cheered and 
cheered. One reporter said never in years of 
reporting had she knoAvn so long a period of 
uninterrupted applause. Miss Sanf ord received 
an ovation such as Avas given to no one else 
during the convention. 

At noon Miss Sanford left the hall and re- 



308 MARIA SANFORD 

turned to Senator Nelson's. The next morning 
she went again to the convention and stayed 
an hour. The Minnesota delegates that day ar- 
ranged for a luncheon in her honor at the New 
Willard. This celebration she enjoyed very 
much; although, as before, she ate very little. 
After the luncheon she shook hands with every- 
one. She showed that she was tired but said 
that she had enjoyed every minute. As she left 
the hotel she spoke to the friend who had spe- 
cial charge of her, saying she knew that she 
had been tended very carefully but that she 
hadn't been conscious of it. She appreciated 
the thoughtfulness, and as she departed she 
kissed her friend on both cheeks. 

She left the delegates at two o'clock; that 
was the last time they saw her. Her friend tel- 
ephoned in the evening to know if she was com- 
fortable, and learned that she was enjoying a 
visit from a former negro student. On leaving 
her hostess for the night she remarked *^I bid 
you good-night on the happiest day of my eighty- 
three years. ' ' She was planning to leave Wash- 
ington the next morning for her brother's home 
near Philadelphia, and to go from there to New 
York where a phonograph record was to be 
made of her Apostrophe to the Flag; but the 



MARIA SANFORD 309 

next morning, April 21, they found only her 
body lying smiling peacefully in her bed. 

As it was Miss Sanford's expressed wish 
that she might be buried wherever she happened 
to die, there was no thought of a return to Min- 
neapolis. The remains were taken to her broth- 
er 's home and buried in the family lot in Mount 
Vernon Cemetery in Philadelphia. The funeral 
ceremony, in accordance with Miss Sanford's 
wishes, was of the simplest sort. 

Some friends who did not understand Miss 
Sanford very well felt that she should not have 
been subjected in her feeble state of health to 
such a long journey and so much excitement; 
but people who were nearest to her knew that 
to her life was action, and that she wished to 
go on to the end. In fact, although feeble on 
the journey, she felt so well in spirit that she 
told the friend who was caring for her that she 
would love to go to her summer home in the 
woods of Northern Minnesota. Believing that 
she would go that summer, she asked how to 
get there. 

At the time of the funeral in Philadelphia on 
the twenty-fourth of April a tribute was paid 
at the University of Minnesota by the students 
and the faculty, who united in five minutes of 
silent prayer. The faculty of the college of Sci- 



310 MAEIA SANFORD 

ence, Literature and the Arts printed a tribute 
of appreciation of lier work and influence. They 
recommended that a scholarship in literature 
be established in her honor and that every grad- 
uate of the University be allowed to participate 
in this tribute to her memory. President Bur- 
ton of the University of Minnesota in his tribute 
the day after her death closed with this beau- 
tiful thought: ^*In reality she symbolizes the 
* death of death.' As with all truly great per- 
sons the path of death has been the path of 
life." 

One writer remarking that it was wholly in 
keeping with her noble spirit that her last pub- 
lic utterance should have been an apostrophe 
to the flag, called her 

A grand, sane, towering, seated mother, 
Chair 'd in the adamant of time. 

Another who felt most deeply concerning her 
years of struggle suggested that **The best me- 
morial Minnesota could devise for Maria San- 
ford would be ample provision for a teacher's 
wage that would insure those who follow her 
footsteps against the privations she so bravely 
bore in pursuit of her calling." 

One editorial beautifully summarized her 
character: ^'Miss Sanford's distinction was 
that she did ordinary things in an ordinary way 



MARIA SANFOED 311 

but with an individuality of enthusiasm, of sin- 
cerity and self-expression that swept all before 
it. She was eccentric only in the neglect to do 
for herself what others do for themselves. 
Dress to her was to cover nakedness, food was 
to sustain life, business activities were to ad- 
vance the cause of well doing, not to exploit 
personalities. Work was not for pay, but for 
accomplishment . . . She mil be missed 
the more because she died in an era against the 
tendencies of which her personality shone as a 
star in blackest night." 

The Minneapolis Teachers' League in their 
memorial wrote: **In her was the sense of 
beauty of the Greek, the love of law and order 
of the Eoman, the integrity and fervor of the 
Puritan, the religious aspiration and devotion 
of a Christian, whose virtues she exemplified." 
In the same number of the '* League Scrip" ap- 
peared the following poem : 

Friend she was, revealer of visions — 

Calm-browed, star-eyed, gracious and kind, 

Mother- wise, rugged, firm in decision, 

Freeing, uplifting, inspiring the mind. 

Power, unrealized, throbbed at her pleading; 

Souls were attuned to ideals again, 
Brotherhood, work of the heart and the hand, 

Made immortal her creed in the lives of men. 

Emma Kennedy Ballentine. 



312 MABIA SANFORD 

The National School Digest printed the fol- 
lowing tribute from Aldena Carlson, a graduate 
of the University in 1915 : 

A fragile cup, Hp-worn, of priceless ware, 

Sweetening with gracious service daily fare; 

A band of flawless gold, thin worn with common use ; 

A costly weft, of lustered, wear toned hues ; 

A treasured book, in life-long labor wrought, 

Offering from open page its store of love and thought. 

The editor of the Alumni Weekly later, in 
commenting upon the numerous tributes from 
the press, remarked that ^^ ... One is 
struck with the prevalence of four recurringly 
descriptive words: * dauntless,' * untiring,' 
* loyal,' * inspiring.' Are they not a character- 
izing host in themselves — those four words — 
with the lamp of a life of eighty-three years to 
read them by?" 

Eesolutions regarding Miss Sanford were 
sent from all over the state, from all kinds of 
clubs: mothers' clubs, women's clubs, hospital 
clubs, teachers' clubs, the Women's Christian 
Temperance Union, and a host of others. Me- 
morials to Miss Sanford began to be heard of. 
The newspapers stated that a copy of her apos- 
trophe to the flag would be placed in the Sibley 
House at Mendota, Minnesota. In memory of 



MARIA SANFORD 313 

her two scholarships for the Thomassee School 
in South Carolina were provided by the Na- 
tional Society of the D. A. R. The students of 
this school were nearly all descendants of Rev- 
olutionary heroes. 

A memorial service was held in St. Mark's 
Episcopal church in Minneapolis, Sunday, May 
9, at which more than a thousand people were 
present. The rector of the church. Dr. Free- 
man, and President Ejneritus Cyrus Northrop 
of the University of Minnesota were the speak- 
ers. The service was arranged by the American 
Overseas Club with the rector of the church. 
At this service money was contributed for a 
bronze memorial tablet to be placed in Shevlin 
Hall the woman 's hall on the University campus. 

A memorial service was also held in the Como 
Avenue Congregational church, of which Miss 
Sanford was a member. The former pastor 
gave the eulogy here. Another memorial ser- 
vice was held in a church near the Maria San- 
ford School. At this church the eulogy was 
pronounced by Professor Emeritus John Cor- 
rin Hutchinson, formerly head of the Greek 
department of the University of Minnesota, a 
long time colleague and warm friend of Miss 
Sanford. The opening of this address con- 



314 MARIA SANFORD 

tained one of the finest tributes: ^^I suppose 
the work of the teacher is twofold, to instruct 
and to educate. To instruct is a comparatively 
simple matter. Granted the adequate informa- 
tion on any subject and a reasonable modicum 
of common sense almost anyone can perform 
that function. To educate is a vastly different 
matter. One may instruct standing on the 
threshold; to educate one must enter into the 
Holy of Holies of personality and only the High 
Priest can safely and efficiently enter there. 
The Instructor deals with means and as an in- 
structor looks no further. The Educator con- 
siders ends and these ends functions of person- 
ality. The Instructor as such is interested 
mainly in his subject; the interest of the Edu- 
cator lies primarily in the persons with whom 
he is concerned and whose harmonious develop- 
ment in all distinctly human attributes is the 
object of his endeavor. This calls for a true 
philosophy of life — a just estimate of human 
values, a balanced ideal of the complex person- 
ality; its emotions, its judgments and its voli- 
tions. It calls for an understanding of the 
paradox of the Great Teacher, *He that saveth 
his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life 
for my sake shall find it.' 
** Dealing with all kinds of dispositions and 



MARIA SANFOBD 315 

tastes and abilities, the successful educator must 
be possessed of an unfaltering faith in the edu- 
cability of every normal person who comes to 
his hand ; that is, he must believe in the essen- 
tial value of the soul as such, to slightly alter 
Wordsworth's words, he must look upon the 
soul of man with awe. He must have a confi- 
dence that cannot be shaken in the power of 
goodness and truth and beauty to charm the 
human spirit and win its adherence ; and it will 
be his most strenuous task to bring those for 
whom he labors under the spell of a worthy, 
nay, rather let me say of the worthiest ideal of 
thought and conduct, that is, of life. 

'*It goes without saying that such ideal must 
be before his own spirit clear as the artist's 
vision, as clear and as compelling; begetting 
in him an enthusiasm and devotion that no in- 
tractability of material can quench, no delay in 
execution diminish, no imperfection of realiza- 
tion destroy. 

** Clear as the artist's vision, yes, and as the 
prophet's vision, too — the one mth its promise 
of beauty, the other with its promise of right- 
eousness. Manifestly such enthusiasm and such 
devotion imply a sensitive sympathy which 
beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth 
all things, endureth all things; no less than a 



316 MABIA SANFORD 

sternness of love which can in due season re- 
buke and chasten; but towards all a patient 
and persistent ministry of unselfish service. 

**Have I made the character clear? It must 
be plain to you that I have been mentioning 
some of those qualities which were finely illus- 
trated in her whose memory we honor on this 
occasion. I do not mean to say that she per- 
fectly attained the ideal — not perfect, nay, but 
full of tender wants — ^who looked all native to 
her place and yet — On tiptoe seemed to touch 
upon a sphere too gross to tread. Her ideals 
of life were so noble and so clearly revealed 
by precept and example that multitudes caught 
her vision and are today endeavoring to trans- 
late it into reality. ' ^ 

At the University of Minnesota a tribute was 
paid on the last convocation of the school year 
by the entire student body. President Emeri- 
tus Folwell, who was president of the Univer- 
sity when Miss Sanford came to Minnesota, 
President Emeritus Cyrus Northrop and Presi- 
dent Marion Le Eoy Burton, with President- 
elect Lotus D. Coffman, all participated in this 
tribute. President Burton presiding announced 
that the Alumni planned a memorial through 
the establishment of an extensive course of 
scholarships. Miss Sanford 's favorite hymns, 



MARIA SANFORD 317 

Jesus, Lover of My Sonl and Hark, Hark My 
Soul, were sung by the students. Prayer was 
offered by Professor Hutchinson and the ad- 
dress was made by President Emeritus Cyrus 
Northrop. 

President Northrop took for his text a part 
of the last chapter of Proverbs which describes 
the ideal woman. The two verses quoted as an 
introduction he had used in his letter of con- 
gratulation on her eightieth birthday: **She 
openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her 
tongue is the law of kindness. Give her of the 
fruit of her hands ; and let her own works praise 
her in the gates.'' 

He called Miss Sanford a Puritan without 
any of the bigotry or narrowness of Puritans ; 
and he closed his eulogy by saying: *^ Useful 
as her life before retirement was, the last eleven 
years were more glorious than anything in her 
previous career. When the war came she 
pleaded for Red Cross hospitals. Christian 
Associations, temperance, government loans, 
suffrage, improvement leagues, Hooverized 
self-denial, national patriotism and confidence. 
*He hath borne our griefs and carried our sor- 
rows,' was said of the Divine Man, and it may 
in some measure be said of Miss Sanford, for 
she carried in her heart the sorrows of univer- 



318 MARIA SANFORD 

sal humanity. ... In the morning when 
they went to her room to call her they fonnd 
that someone had been there before. The Angel 
of Death had visited her in the silence of the 
night and claimed her. . . . Apparently 
she lay there with placid fignre, but in reality 
it was only her deserted tenement. She was not 
there, for God had taken her. We shall miss 
her — never again shall we hear her eloquent 
voice — never — never — never ! The last echo to 
reach us is her splendid apostrophe to the flag 
— almost an echo from the spirit world. ' ' 

A neighborhood paper published in Miss San- 
ford 's home district contained tributes from 
neighbors, both men and women, and the school 
children of the district ; among them was a poem 
written by a former student, the wife of a pro- 
fessor in the University. 

IN MEMORY OF MARIA L. SANFORD 

Silent, forever silent, now that voice 

That like rich organ tones so often thrilled; 

Quiet, forever quiet, now those hands, 

So long with deeds of love and service filled. 

Long years ago she prayed that in her age 

Life would with autumn glory touch her soul, 

That the bright-colored leaves might symbols be 
Of her own spirit, resolute and whole. 



MARIA SANFORD 319 

Faith its own answer wrouglit — for hearts like hers 
The passing years can bring no winter chill, 

But only ripened wisdom, golden hoards 

Where lesser men may free their coffers fill. 

Sturdy as her Xew England hills she stood. 

Nor sought the path that knows not toil and pain; 

Fullness of life she craved that from that fount 
She might a richer sjTupathy attain. 

Thrice blessed those whose privilege it was 
To call her teacher in that former time. 

But happy all who from her lips have learned 

The dignit}^ of toil, her simple creed sublime. 

Lillian Marvin Swenson. 

In memory of Miss Sanford a girls' literary 
club at the Crookston, Minnesota, agricultural 
station is named the Maria Sanford Club. The 
young women students of the University of Min- 
nesota formed a Maria Sanford Republican 
Club which was the pioneer middle western 
Republican organization among college women. 
The Como Avenue Congregational church has 
now a woman 's club named after her. 

The Women's Shakespeare Club of Minneap- 
olis in June, 1921, presented a beautiful photo- 
graph of Miss Sanford to the Minnesota His- 
torical Society, and held appropriate exercises 
on the occasion of the presentation. A devoted 
friend of Miss Sanford also presented to the 



320 MARIA SANFOED 

Maria Sanford School a beautiful photograph 
to be hung in the school so that the little chil- 
dren who never had the privilege of seeing her 
might have an idea of her in their minds. This 
photograph is the one that her University col- 
leagues always considered the best picture of 
her ever taken. 

The Minnesota D. A. R. has planned a ten 
thousand dollar memorial, the nature of which 
has not 3^et been decided. The greatest me- 
morial of all, however, and the one which would 
please her best, is the quickened and ennobled 
lives of the thousands who called her blessed. 

The apostrophe to the flag, beautifully illum- 
inated by a Minneapolis artist, a former stu- 
dent of Miss Sanford 's, was given by the Min- 
nesota State Regent to be placed in the Me- 
morial Continental Hall, Washington, the place 
in which the address was originally given. 

Apostrophe to the Flag 

Hail, thou flag of our fathers, flag of the 
free ! With pride and loyalty and love we greet 
thee, and promise to cherish thee forever. How 
wonderful has been thy onward progress of 
conquest through the years ; how marvelous the 
triumph of thy followers over the vicissitudes 



MARIA SANFORD 321 

of fortune that met thee on their way. Daring 
men have reverently placed thee on the highest 
crag of the frozen North, and have as rever- 
ently stationed thee on the cloud-swept wastes 
of the far-off frozen South. They have followed 
thee in willing service over the wastes of every 
ocean and into the depths of the impenetrable 
blue. 

Stalwart, strong hearted men have willingly 
laid down their lives at thy command, to guard 
the outposts of freedom. Millions of men, women 
and children have stood at attention listening 
for the first sound of thy need, mlling to give 
their all, if need be, for thy defense. Thousands 
upon thousands of our bravest and our best fol- 
lowed thee across the seas for the glorious privi- 
lege of defending the weak and the helpless or 
of reinforcing the hard pressed lives of brave 
men who would not yield. 

Our flag — it has long been known as the em- 
blem of strength and power. The stricken na- 
tions of the earth have learned sweeter attri- 
butes, kindly sympathy, loving service, gener- 
ous helpfulness. By these thou art welcome 
throughout the earth. 

Glorious and beautiful flag of our fathers, the 
Star Spangled Banner, beautiful in thine own 
waving folds, glorious in the memory of the 

21 



322 MARIA SANFORD 

brave deeds of those who chose thee for their 
standard ! 

More beautiful, more glorious is the great 
nation which has inherited their land and their 
flag, if we who claim, who boast our lineage 
from those heroes gone, if we inherit not alone 
their name, their blood, their banner, but inherit 
their nobler part, the spirit that actuated them ; 
their love of liberty, their devotion to justice, 
their inflexible pursuance of righteousness and 
truth. 

Most beautiful and most glorious shalt thou 
be as the messenger of such a nation, bearing 
to the lends of the earth the glad tidings of the 
joy and the glory and the happiness of a people 
where freedom is linked with justice, where lib- 
erty is restrained by law, and where ** peace on 
earth, good will to men" is the living creed. 

Press on, press on, glorious banner, bearing 
this message to all the peoples: 

* ' Our hearts, our hopes are all with thee ; 
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears; 
Our faith, triumphant o'er our fears, 
Are all with thee; are all with thee.** 



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